Surveillance along the Rio Grande during the 2020 Vesicular Stomatitis Outbreak Reveals Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of and Viral RNA Detection in Black Flies.

ABSTRACT: Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) emerges periodically from its focus of endemic transmission in southern Mexico to cause epizootics in livestock in the US. The ecology of VSV involves a diverse, but largely undefined, repertoire of potential reservoir hosts and invertebrate vectors. As part of a larger program to decipher VSV transmission, we conducted a study of the spatiotemporal dynamics of Simulium black flies, a known vector of VSV, along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, USA from March to December 2020. Serendipitously, the index case of VSV-Indiana (VSIV) in the USA in 2020 occurred at a central point of our study. Black flies appeared soon after the release of the Rio Grande's water from an upstream dam in March 2020. Two-month and one-year lagged precipitation, maximum

SUBMITTER: Young KI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8541391 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature