%0 Journal Article %A Collie, Madeleine H. %A Rushton, D. I. %A Sweet, C. %A Smith, H. %T STUDIES OF INFLUENZA VIRUS INFECTION IN NEWBORN FERRETS %D 1980 %J Journal of Medical Microbiology, %V 13 %N 4 %P 561-571 %@ 1473-5644 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/00222615-13-4-561 %I Microbiology Society, %X PLATES XXXVII-XXXVIII THE OCCURRENCE of excess infant deaths during influenza epidemics (Dauer and Serfling, 1961; Wynne Griffith et al., 1972) suggests that influenza plays a greater role in infant death and severe illness than is generally recognised (Nelson et al., 1975; Paisley et al., 1978). Although children are highly susceptible to influenza infection, their symptoms may be milder than in the adult (Douglas, 1975). However, convulsions, croup and pneumonia also occur (Brocklebank et al., 1972; Naude et al., 1974; Spence, Brodie and Masson, 1975; Laraya-Cuasay et al., 1977; Paisley et al., 1978). The pathology of influenza in infants has rarely been reported, and then usually in cases complicated by other disease processes (Louria et al., 1959); by contrast, the findings in adult man (Hers and Mulder, 1961) and in the adult ferret (Francis and Stuart-Harris, 1938) have been well described. Influenza in the healthy adult ferret is a transient, non-fatal illness, similar to that occurring in the vast majority of human adults (Toms et al., 1976). This similarity of clinical and pathological responses in man and ferret, and the recognition of fatal infection in the fetal ferret (Collie et al., 1978) stimulated the present investigation into the susceptibility of the newborn ferret to influenza. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-13-4-561