Abstract
Alexander the Great and West Nile virus encephalitis.
Highlights
To the Editor: We wish to commend Marr and Calisher for their brilliant presentation of the West Nile virus (WNV) hypothesis to explain the death of Alexander the Great [1]
To estimate the time of divergence among the different WNV strains, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis of a number of WNV sequences available in GenBank using a maximum likelihood (ML) method that makes it possible to estimate the branch lengths of a phylogeny with dated isolates under the single rate dated tips (SRDT) model [4]
On the basis of these substitution rates, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for lineage 1 can be dated back 1,159 years ago (95% confidence interval [CI] 1,043–1,274, i.e., between 729 and 961 AD) and the MRCA for lineage 2 back to 208 years ago (Figure)
Summary
To the Editor: Marr and Calisher suggest the cause of Alexander the Great’s death in Babylon in 323 B.C. was West Nile encephalitis [1]. Are the features of his illness and temporal sequence of events characteristic of West Nile encephalitis [9]? West Nile encephalitis is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that may have been endemic in ancient Babylon.
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