Baloxavir treatment of ferrets infected with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus reduces onward transmission
Fig 4
Effect of BXA treatment on direct contact transmission after delayed co-housing of sentinel ferrets (Melbourne study).
(A) Experimental setup. Donor ferrets were intranasally inoculated with 103 TCID50 of influenza A/Perth/265/2009. Antiviral treatment of infected donor ferrets commenced 24 hours post-infection, and influenza-naïve sentinel ferrets were co-housed with donor ferrets 24 hours post-treatment. OST was administered to donors a total of six times across a three-day period until sacrifice. BXA and placebo (methyl cellulose solution) were each delivered subcutaneously as a single dose. Nasal washes were collected from sentinel ferrets to assess shedding of infectious virus from 1 DPE to 10 DPE, and a terminal bleed was collected for serology at 16 DPE. (B) Nasal wash infectious viral titres in donor and sentinel ferrets. Donor ferrets were either treated with placebo (upper panel), treated with oseltamivir (OST, middle) or treated with baloxavir (BXA, lower). Virus replication curves (TCID50) for each donor/DC sentinel pair are graphed.