Detection of a novel highly pathogenic H7 influenza virus by duplex real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction

Abstract On February 19, 2017, China announced that the mutant H7N9 virus appeared in human cases, which showed molecular characteristic of highly pathogenic virus for poultry. In this study, a duplex real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay was developed for distinguish between highly pathogenic H7 virus and low pathogenic H7 virus. The sensitivity, specificity, stability and conformance tests were conducted for this method. The data showed that the new method is sensitive. The minimum detection limit for the RNA of highly pathogenic H7 virus is 0.0052 fg and the minimum detection limit for the RNA of low pathogenic H7 virus is 0.36 fg. The method gave specific results in detecting novel highly pathogenic H7 virus and will play an important role in the rapid identification of novel highly pathogenic H7 virus.