Abstract
We conducted a complete genome analysis of a West Nile virus detected in Culex pipiens mosquitoes during a severe outbreak of human West Nile disease in Greece 2010. The virus showed closest genetic relationship to the lineage 2 strain that emerged in Hungary in 2004; increased virulence may be associated with amino acid substitution H249P.
Highlights
West Nile virus (WNV) is a flavivirus maintained in an enzootic cycle between bird amplifying hosts and ornithophilic mosquito vectors, mainly Culex species; humans, horses, and other mammals are incidental hosts
A new lineage, lineage 5, has been proposed for Indian isolates previously comprising lineage 1c, and a reclassification as lineage 6 has been proposed for the Sarawak Kunjin virus strain, which is markedly different from the other Kunjin viruses
In Greece, where WNV cases had not previously been reported, a 2007 study, conducted in an area near a delta where 4 rivers enter the Aegean Sea, 4 (1%) of 392 persons exhibited neutralizing WNV antibodies, 2 with high titers. These findings suggested that WNV, or an antigenically closely related flavivirus, circulates, at least locally, in rural areas in Greece (7)
Summary
West Nile virus (WNV) is a flavivirus maintained in an enzootic cycle between bird amplifying hosts and ornithophilic mosquito vectors, mainly Culex species; humans, horses, and other mammals are incidental hosts. WNV of proposed lineage 3 (“Rabensburg virus”) is circulating in certain Culex and Aedes species mosquitoes in southern Moravia, Czech Republic, close to the Austrian border, without recognized pathogenicity for mammals (3). Indicate that several highly virulent and neuroinvasive strains of lineage 2 WNV were detected in southern Africa (5). Besides deaths in birds and domesticated mammals, human neurologic WNV cases have been diagnosed in the affected regions during the epidemic seasons since 2004. The human cases of WNV neuroinvasive disease have been comparatively rare and rather mild with no deaths
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