Hantavirus disease outbreak in Germany: limitations of routine serological diagnostics and clustering of virus sequences of human and rodent origin.

ABSTRACT: In Europe, hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome results mainly from infection with Puumala virus (PUUV) or Dobrava virus. For 31 patients from a hantavirus disease outbreak in Lower Bavaria, a district in southeast Germany, serodiagnosis was undertaken by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunofluorescence assay, and immunoblot analysis. In a few of these cases, however, PUUV-specific typing of antibodies by these standard assays failed and a virus neutralization assay under biosafety level 3 conditions was required to verify the infection by this virus type. PUUV RNA was amplified by reverse transcription-PCR from acute-phase sera of three patients and was found to be very closely related to virus sequences obtained from bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) trapped in the same area. Th

SUBMITTER: Schilling S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2045283 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature