Year: 2012
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: We investigated West Nile virus (WNV) as a possible disease etiology in persons hospitalized in South Africa.Of 206 specimens tested, 36 had WNV neutralizing antibodies, signifi cantly more than in similar earlier serosurveys.Seven probable acute WNV cases were identifi ed, suggesting WNV may be overlooked as an etiology of severe disease in South Africa.W est Nile virus (WNV), a mosquito-borne fl avivirus (1), is a reemerging pathogen of global concern (2).Febrile illness occurs in ≈20% of WNV-infected persons; neurologic complications (e.g., meningitis, encephalitis, fl accid paralysis) occur in <1% (3).Detection of IgM in serum or cerebrospinal fl uid (CSF) is the preferred method for diagnosing WNV infection; however, because of cross-reactivity between fl aviviruses, positive results should be confi rmed by virus neutralization assay.Early WNV infection can be diagnosed by PCR and virus isolation (4), but success has been limited in diagnosing more advanced disease with these techniques.WNV is endemic to southern Africa.In 1947, one of the largest WNV epidemics recorded occurred in the Karoo region of South Africa (5), and another occurred in combination with a Sindbis virus epidemic in 1983-84 in the Witwatersrand-Pretoria region of South Africa.The most recent seroprevalence data for WNV in the Pretoria region of South Africa is from the 1970s (reviewed in [6]).To update that information, we determined whether WNV is being overlooked as a possible cause of disease in persons hospitalized in South Africa.The University of Pretoria Research Ethics Committee approved this study.
Source: Emerging infectious diseases
Authors: Dewald Zaayman, Marietjie Venter
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2067888384