Abstract:
Effect of Aluminium – Magnesium Silicate (AMS) on Avian Influenza Virus was tested in vitro by incubating an isolate of a highly pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) involved in an outbreak of the disease in Nigeria, with a synthetic AMS. The isolate was a confirmed Influenza virus type A, subtype H5N1. Equal amount of the Virus sample and of the AMS, on volume to weight (v/w) basis, were incubated at room temperature for one hour and then centrifuged at 3000 revolutions per minute. The supernatant was tested for viral haemagglutination (HA) titre and for Mean Death Time (MDT) and Embryo Mortality rate (EMR) in embryonated chicken eggs. Incubating samples of the AIV isolate with the synthetic AMS, reduced volumes of the samples at mean rate of 24.3%. It also reduced the viral (HA) titre from a mean of 73±32.72 to 1.4 ±0.43 (P<0.05) and EMR from 100% to 65%. MDT of chicken embryos innocuated with the AIV increased from 76 ±4.38 hours to 130 ±17.27 hours (P< 0.05). When three portions of a sample of the AIV were incubated with the AMS once, twice and thrice respectively,MDT of chick embryos innoculated with the isolate increased from 64 hours to 104 hours in the portion incubated once. In the two portions where the incubation was repeated EMR reduced from 100% to zero
