Demonstration of Presence of Fowl Pox Virus in Wild Caught Mosquitoes (Culex Pipiens).

Abstract

Kligler, Muckenfuss and Rivers 1 have shown that fowl pox could be transmitted experimentally by culex and stegomyia mosquitoes when fed on lesions of fowl pox infected chickens, either by interrupted or successive feeding. They also showed that when culex were liberated in a box containing healthy and infected chickens, the healthy chickens soon developed a fowl pox infection. Kligler and Aschner 2 confirmed these findings and showed that the virus remained on the proboscis at least 14 days but could not be demonstrated within the insect.

We have now obtained evidence that Culex pipiens taken in the vicinity of chickens infected with fowl pox harbor the virus. In our experiments with fowl pox virus, healthy and infected chickens were always kept in the same room without the occurrence of spontaneous infections. During October spontaneous infections suddenly appeared among our healthy native chickens, kept in separate cages in the same room with infected ones. This room was heavily infested with Culex pipiens. The chickens were bought September 14th and the infection appeared between September 25th and 28th.

At the same time, 5 leghorn cockerels kept in an adjacent screened room remained uninfected. One of these was inoculated October 27th and became positive October 30th. November 10th, 10 additional leghorns were put in this room. Three days later mosquitoes were discovered in this room. The 14 healthy chickens were then transferred to another room. All developed spontaneous infections about a week after removal from the mosquito infested room.