Retrospective Investigation in Horses with Encephalitis Reveals Unnoticed Circulation of West Nile Virus in Brazil

During these past years, several studies have provided serological evidence regarding the circulation of West Nile virus (WNV) in Brazil. Despite some reports, much is still unknown regarding the genomic diversity and transmission dynamics of this virus in the country. Recently, genomic monitoring a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Viruses Vol. 14; no. 7; p. 1540
Main Authors:	Fritsch, Hegger, Pereira, Felicidade Mota, Costa, Erica Azevedo, Fonseca, Vagner, Tosta, Stephane, Xavier, Joilson, Levy, Flavia, Oliveira, Carla de, Menezes, Gabriela, Lima, Jaqueline, Santos, Lenisa, Silva, Luciana, Nardy, Vanessa, Astete, Marcela Kelly Gómez, Santos, Beatriz Senra Álvares da Silva, Aguiar, Nágila Rocha, Guedes, Maria Isabel Maldonado Coelho, Faria, Guilherme Canhestro de, Furtini, Ronaldo, Drumond, Safira Rachel Milanez, Cunha, Gabriel Muricy, Souza, Marcia São Pedro Leal, Jesus, Ronaldo de, Guimarães, Sara A Franco, Nuno, Italo Coelho, Santana, Ian Carlos Brito de, Sá, José Eduardo Ungar de, Santos, George Roma, Silva, Willadesmon Santos, Guedes, Thiago Ferreira, Araújo, Emerson Luiz Lima, Said, Rodrigo Fabiano do Carmo, Albuquerque, Carlos Frederico Campelo de, Peterka, Cassio Roberto Leonel, Romano, Alessandro Pecego Martins, Cunha, Rivaldo Venâncio da, Filippis, Ana Maria Bispo de, Leal E Silva de Mello, Arabela, Giovanetti, Marta, Alcantara, Luiz Carlos Junior
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Switzerland MDPI AG 14-07-2022 MDPI
Subjects:	Animals Antibodies, Viral Bayes Theorem Bayesian analysis Brazil Brazil - epidemiology Brief Report Causes of Diseases Distribution Encephalitis Encephalitis, Viral Ethics Genetic aspects Genomes genomic monitoring Genomics Horse Diseases - epidemiology Horses Humans nanopore sequencing Outbreaks Phylogenetics Retrospective Studies Risk factors Serology Software Spinal cord Viruses West Nile Fever - epidemiology West Nile Fever - veterinary West Nile virus West Nile virus - genetics WNV Brazil South America United States > US Brazil genomic monitoring nanopore sequencing WNV
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Summary:	During these past years, several studies have provided serological evidence regarding the circulation of West Nile virus (WNV) in Brazil. Despite some reports, much is still unknown regarding the genomic diversity and transmission dynamics of this virus in the country. Recently, genomic monitoring activities in horses revealed the circulation of WNV in several Brazilian regions. These findings on the paucity of genomic data reinforce the need for prompt investigation of WNV infection in horses, which may precede human cases of encephalitis in Brazil. Thus, in this study, we retrospectively screened 54 suspicious WNV samples collected between 2017 and 2020 from the spinal cord and brain of horses with encephalitis and generated three new WNV genomes from the Ceará and Bahia states, located in the northeastern region of Brazil. The Bayesian reconstruction revealed that at least two independent introduction events occurred in Brazil. The first introduction event appears to be likely related to the North American outbreak, and was estimated to have occurred in March 2013.The second introduction event appears to have occurred in September 2017 and appears to be likely related to the South American outbreak. Together, our results reinforce the importance of increasing the priority of WNV genomic monitoring in equines with encephalitis in order to track the dispersion of this emerging pathogen through the country.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:	1999-4915 1999-4915
DOI:	10.3390/v14071540