Highly diverse morbillivirus-related paramyxoviruses in wild fauna of the southwestern Indian Ocean Islands: evidence of exchange between introduced and endemic small mammals.

ABSTRACT:

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The Paramyxoviridae form an increasingly diverse viral family, infecting a wide variety of different hosts. In recent years, they have been linked to disease emergence in many different animal populations and in humans. Bats and rodents have been identified as major animal populations capable of harboring paramyxoviruses, and host shifting between these animals is likely to be an important driving factor in the underlying evolutionary processes that eventually lead to disease emergence. Here, we have studied paramyxovirus circulation within populations of endemic and introduced wild small mammals of the southwestern Indian Ocean region and belonging to four taxonomic orders: Rodentia, Afrosoricida, Soricomorpha, and Chiroptera. We report elevated infection levels as well

SUBMITTER: Wilkinson DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4135957 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature