Sindbis Virus Infection in Resident Birds, Migratory Birds

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: karelia*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.306.3480; http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/1/pdfs/07-0510.pdf

causes rash and arthritis, has been causing outbreaks in humans every seventh year in northern Europe. To gain a better understanding of SINV epidemiology in Finland, we searched for SINV antibodies in 621 resident grouse, whose population declines have coincided with human SINV outbreaks, and in 836 migratory birds. We used hemagglutination-inhibition and neutralization tests for the bird samples and enzyme immunoassays and hemagglutination-inhibition for the human samples. SINV antibodies were fi rst found in 3 birds (red-backed shrike, robin, song thrush) during their spring migration to northern Europe. Of the grouse, 27.4% were seropositive in 2003 (1 year after a human outbreak), but only 1.4 % were seropositive in 2004. Among 2,529 persons, the age-standardized seroprevalence (1999–2003) was 5.2%; seroprevalence and incidence (1995–2003) were highest in North Karelia (eastern Finland). Grouse may contribute to the epidemiology of SINV in humans. Sindbis virus (SINV) was first recognized and isolated in 1952 from a pool of Culex pipiens and Cx. univittatus mosquitoes collected from a village in the Nile River delta in Egypt, after which the virus was named (1). SINV, a member of the western equine encephalomyelitis complex of the genus Alphavirus in the family Togaviridae, is an enveloped virus with a genome of single-stranded, positivepolarity, 11.7-kb RNA (2). SINV is present throughout the Old World but has never been found in the New World