Assessing the exposure of German and Austrian bird ringers to West Nile virus ( Flavivirus ) and evaluating their potent
- PDF / 179,099 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 56 Downloads / 163 Views
SHORT NOTE
Assessing the exposure of German and Austrian bird ringers to West Nile virus (Flavivirus) and evaluating their potential risk of infection Sonja Linke Æ Marion Muehlen Æ Matthias Niedrig Æ Heinz Ellerbrok Æ Andreas Kaiser Æ Wolfgang Fiedler Æ Karen Sonnenberg Æ Katharina Alpers Æ Klaus Stark Æ Georg Pauli
Received: 26 July 2007 / Revised: 10 December 2007 / Accepted: 10 December 2007 / Published online: 9 January 2008 Ó Dt. Ornithologen-Gesellschaft e.V. 2007
Abstract West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne Flavivirus with birds as its natural reservoir. Mosquitoes are able to transmit WNV to humans. In Europe, WNV is most probably imported by migrating birds from WNVendemic regions. In this study, the risk of WNV infection during bird-ringing activities in Germany and Austria was investigated. Several serological test systems were used to study WNV antibody prevalence among 137 bird ringers. Neutralising antibodies were detected in three of the bird ringers. This seropositivity could be explained by alternative factors such as traveling to endemic areas. The application of different serological methods showed that WNV IgG ELISAs were less specific than WNV IgG immunofluorescence tests (IFT). The neutralisation test Communicated by F. Bairlein. S. Linke and M. Muehlen have contributed equally to this manuscript. S. Linke M. Muehlen M. Niedrig H. Ellerbrok K. Alpers K. Stark G. Pauli (&) Robert Koch-Institut, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] A. Kaiser University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany W. Fiedler Vogelwarte Radolfzell at Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany K. Sonnenberg EUROIMMUN AG, Lu¨beck, Germany Present Address: M. Muehlen Theoretical Epidemiology Group, Instituto Gulbenkian de Cieˆncia (IGC), Oeiras, Portugal
(NT) appears to be the gold standard for Flavivirus differentiation. At present, we assume that bird-ringing activity in Germany and Austria harbours a very low risk of WNV infection. Keywords West Nile virus Zoonosis German and Austrian bird ringers Epidemiology Serological test systems
Introduction Factors like international travel and trade, interaction between man and wildlife, climatic changes, and destruction of ecosystems have led to the emergence and spread of infectious diseases in many regions of the world (Marano and Pappaioanou 2004; Sutherst 2004; Gubler 2001). In recent years, zoonotic diseases like West Nile fever (WNF) were introduced into new geographic regions with a large impact on public health management. The emergence of West Nile virus (WNV) in New York in 1999 and its rapid spread across large parts of the Americas attracted worldwide attention (Reisen and Brault 2007). WNV is an arbovirus of the genus Flavivirus in the family Flaviviridae. Birds are the natural reservoir of WNV, but mosquito species feeding on both birds and mammals can transmit the virus from its avian host to humans. Migrating birds are considered as an important carrier in spreading WNV over long distances. It is assumed that WN
Data Loading...
