A comparative study of the pathogenesis of western equine and eastern equine encephalomyelitis viral infections in mice by intracerebral and subcutaneous inoculations.

Abstract

Among the group A arboviruses, eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and western equine encephalitis (WEE) viruses are clinically important in the continental United States, being responsible for periodic epidemics. In general, the WEE virus may cause encephalitis in man with variable severity, fatal in only a small proportion of cases. On the other hand, the EEE virus is usually responsible for severe and often fatal encephalitis in human beings [1]. Although these 2 agents have been studied extensively in terms of their biologic characteristics and epidemiologic distributions [27], the use of a combination of virologic, histopathologic, and immunofluorescent techniques to study the pathogenesis of these 2 viral infections in experimental animals to our knowledge has not been reported. This paper is concerned with the observations in our laboratory on a comparative study of the pathogenesis of infection by intracerebral (ic) and subcutaneous (sc) inoculation in mice with WEE and EEE viruses.