THE SWINE LUNGWORM AS A RESERVOIR AND INTERMEDIATE HOST FOR SWINE INFLUENZA VIRUS

Abstract

1. The swine lungworm can serve as intermediate host in transmitting swine influenza virus to swine. The virus is present in a masked non-infective form in the lungworm, however, and, to induce infection, must be rendered active by the application of a provocative stimulus to the swine it infests. Multiple intramuscular injections of H. influenzae suis furnish a means of provoking infection. Swine influenza infections can be provoked in properly prepared swine during the autumn, winter, and spring, but not during the summer. The phenomenon, while not regularly reproducible, occurs in well over half the experiments conducted outside the refractory period of summer. No explanation for the failures is apparent. 2. The virus can persist in its lungworm intermediate host for at least 2 years. 3. Swine infected with swine influenza virus by way of the lungworm intermediate host exhibit a more pronounced pneumonia of the posterior lobes of the lung than do animals infected intranasally with virus. The situation of the worms providing the virus will account for this. 4. Occasional swine infested with lungworms carrying influenza virus fail to become clinically ill after provocation but instead become immune. In these it is believed that lungworms containing the virus are localized outside the respiratory tract at the time of provocation. 5. It is believed that the experiments described furnish an explanation for the findings recorded in the preceding paper, in which swine influenza virus infections were induced in apparently normal swine by multiple injections of H. influenzae suis. 6. In a single experiment swine lungworms failed to transmit hog cholera virus.