A review of evidence that equine influenza viruses are zoonotic

Abstract

Among scientists, there exist mixed opinions whether equine influenza viruses infect man. In this report, we summarize a 2016 systematic and comprehensive review of the English, Chinese, and Mongolian scientific literature regarding evidence for equine influenza virus infections in man. Searches of PubMed, Web of Knowledge, ProQuest, CNKI, Chongqing VIP Database, Wanfang Data and MongolMed yielded 2831 articles, of which 16 met the inclusion criteria for this review. Considering these 16 publications, there was considerable experimental and observational evidence that at least H3N8 equine influenza viruses have occasionally infected man. In this review we summarize the most salient scientific reports.