Abstract
Between July and August 2017, seven of 12,047 blood donations from eastern Austria, reacted positive to West Nile virus (WNV) in the cobas test (Roche). Follow-up investigations revealed Usutu virus (USUV) nucleic acid in six of these. Retrospective analyses of four blood donors diagnosed as WNV-infected in 2016 showed one USUV positive. Blood transfusion services and public health authorities in USUV-endemic areas should be aware of a possible increase of human USUV infections.
Highlights
Between July and August 2017, seven of 12,047 blood donations from eastern Austria, reacted positive to West Nile virus (WNV) in the cobas test (Roche)
In 2014, the Austrian Red Cross, Blood Service for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, initiated regular screening of all blood donated between 1 June and 30 November each year for West Nile virus (WNV) by a nucleic acid test (NAT)
Samples of all blood donations collected from 1 June onwards by the Blood Service for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland of the Austrian Red Cross during the ongoing WNV transmission season 2017 were sent to the German Red Cross, Blood Service for BadenWürttemberg-Hessen in Frankfurt, Germany, where they were screened in minipools of 19 samples using the automated NAT test on the cobas 8800 system
Summary
Sequences are labelled by codes containing the GenBank accession number, country of origin, and year of sample collection. Phylogenetic trees were established by the neighbour-joining method within the molecular evolutionary genetics analysis (MEGA) programme, for complete coding sequences as well as for partial NS5–3’UTR sequences as described previously [6]. In both phylogenetic analyses, based on complete coding and partial NS5–3’UTR sequences, all Austrian blooddonor-derived sequences cluster within the ‘Europe 2’ genetic lineage of USUV. They are closely related with each other and with Italian avian- and human-derived viruses from 2009 and 2010, including strain Bologna 2009 [7,8,9], and with recent (2016) bird-derived viruses from Austria and Hungary [6] (Figures 1 and 2). The sequences determined during this study were deposited in GenBank under accession numbers MF991886 (coding-complete sequence) and MF991887–90 (partial NS5–3’UTR sequences)
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