exudates and Hantavirus-Infections

Topics: Animals; Asia; Communicable Diseases, Emerging; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Disease Outbreaks; Disease Reservoirs; Disease Transmission, Infectious; Hantavirus Infections; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola; Hong Kong; Humans; Malaysia; Orthomyxoviridae Infections; Paramyxoviridae Infections; Paramyxovirinae; RNA Virus Infections; Sudan; Swine

In the past ten years, several novel hantaviruses were discovered in shrews, moles, and bats, suggesting the dispersal of hantaviruses in many animal taxa other than rodents during their evolution. Interestingly, the coevolutionary analyses of most recent studies have raised the possibility that nonrodents may have served as the primordial mammalian host and harboured the ancestors of rodent-borne hantaviruses as well. The aim of our study was to investigate the presence of hantaviruses in bat lung tissue homogenates originally collected for taxonomic purposes in Malaysia in 2015. Hantavirus-specific nested RT-PCR screening of 116 samples targeting the L segment of the virus has revealed the positivity of two lung tissue homogenates originating from two individuals, a female and a male of the

Topics: Animals; Chiroptera; Evolution, Molecular; Female; Genome, Viral; Hantavirus Infections; Lung; Malaysia; Male; Orthohantavirus; Phylogeny; RNA, Viral

Hantaviruses are primarily rodent-borne and transmission is by inhalation of virus-contaminated aerosols of rodent excreta, especially urine and saliva. The genus Hantavirus, family Bunyaviridae, comprises at least 14 serotypes and the symptoms of clinical illness range from mild fever to severe hemorrhagic manifestations with renal complications. Many countries in Southeast Asia are unaware of the importance of hantavirus infections and give them low priority. Malaysia, like other countries in the region, has conducted very few studies on the epidemiology of hantaviruses - and even these were conducted in the 1980s. Using a more extensive range of hantavirus antigens, we conducted a seroprevalence study of rodents and humans and found further evidence of hantavirus infections. Moreover, the data from the antibody profiles strongly suggest the presence of different hantaviruses at the study sites.

Topics: Animals; Antibodies, Viral; Hantavirus Infections; Humans; Malaysia; Orthohantavirus; Rats; Seroepidemiologic Studies