Recent Ancestry of Kyasanur Forest Disease Virus

Clinicians in Asia should consider this disease when diagnosing acute febrile illnesses

Genetic characterization of Bagaza virus (BAGV) isolated in India and evidence of anti-BAGV antibodies in sera collected from encephalitis patients

During investigations into the outbreak of encephalitis in 1996 in the Kerala state in India, an arbovirus was isolated from a Culex tritaeniorhynchus mosquito pool. It was characterized as a Japanese encephalitis and West Nile virus cross-reactive arbovirus by complement fixation test. A plaque reduction-neutralization test was performed using hyperimmune sera raised against the plaque-purified arbovirus isolate. The sera did not show reactivity with Japanese encephalitis virus and were weakly reactive with West Nile virus. Complete open reading frame sequence analysis characterized the arbovirus as Bagaza virus (BAGV), with 94.80?% nucleotide identity with African BAGV strain DakAr B209. Sera collected from the encephalitic patients during the acute phase of illness showed 15?% (8/53) positivity for anti-BAGV neutralizing antibodies. This is the first report of the isolation of BAGV from India. The presence of anti-BAGV neutralizing antibodies suggests that the human population has been exposed to BAGV

Chikungunya Outbreaks Caused by African Genotype, India

Chikungunya fever is reported in India after 32 years. Immunoglobulin M antibodies and virus isolation confirmed the cause. Phylogenic analysis based on partial sequences of NS4 and E1 genes showed that all earlier isolates (1963–1973) were Asian genotype, whereas the current and Yawat (2000) isolates were African genotype