BORNAVIRUS; ZOONOTIC AND ANIMAL HEALTH.

Borna disease (BD) is one of the oldest known viral infections in domestic animals, initially known as a horse disease. Until recently, the disease has been considered limited to Central Europe, mainly in German-speaking countries, affecting primarily horses in a seasonal pattern. Most of the research and the subsequent relevant publications on BD were written, up to the mid-20th century, in the German language. Between late 2011 and 2013, three men in succession — aged 63, 62 and 72 years — from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, suffered a progressive encephalitis or meningoencephalitis that led to death within 2 to 4 months after the onset of clinical symptoms. The clinical course was characterized by fever, shivers, or both; progressive psychomotor slowing; confusion; unsteady gait; myoclonus, ocular paresis, or both; and finally, coma. All three were breeders of variegated squirrels, a tree squirrel that is endemic in Central America from south Chiapas, Mexico, to Panama. They were friends, had met privately on a regular basis, and had exchanged their squirrel-breeding pairs on multiple occasions. At least two of the men had been scratched by their squirrels in the past; one had been bitten. The use of a metagenomic approach that incorporated sequencing and real-time reverse-transcriptase quantitative PCR, or RT-qPCR, the presence of a previously unknown bornavirus was detected in a contact squirrel and in brain samples from the three patients. Phylogenetic analyses showed that this virus, tentatively named “variegated squirrel 1 bornavirus” (VSBV-1), forms a lineage separate from that of the known bornavirus species. During the first weeks of 2016, the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), Germany’s National Institute for Animal Health, detected further cases of VSBV-1 in pet squirrels from zoos and breeders. Variegated squirrels as well as several species of the subfamily Callosciurinae were affected. All infected squirrels were detected in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony. Consequently, on March 1, FLI released a recommendation to test all pet squirrels for the virus, particularly prior to their sale or purchase. Newly acquired squirrels should be retested after 3 months to detect infections contracted during the time of purchase, and entire holdings after approximately 12 months. Read more; http://www.healio.com/