Shuni Virus as Cause of Neurologic Disease in Horses - Vol. 18 No. 2 - February 2012 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Shuni Virus as Cause of Neurologic Disease in Horses - Vol. 18 No. 2 - February 2012 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Shuni Virus as Cause of Neurologic Disease in Horses

Article Contents

• The Study
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Figure 1
• Figure 2
• Table
• Suggested Citation

Charmaine van Eeden, June H. Williams, Truuske G.H. Gerdes, Erna van Wilpe, Adrianne Viljoen, Robert Swanepoel, and Marietjie Venter 

Author affiliations: University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa (C. van Eeden, J.H. Williams, E. van Wilpe, A. Viljoen, R. Swanepoel); Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, Pretoria (T.G.H. Gerdes); National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Sandringham, South Africa (M. Venter)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

To determine which agents cause neurologic disease in horses, we conducted reverse transcription PCR on isolates from of a horse with encephalitis and 111 other horses with acute disease. Shuni virus was found in 7 horses, 5 of which had neurologic signs. Testing for lesser known viruses should be considered for horses with unexplained illness.

Several mosquito-borne alphaviruses, flaviviruses, and orthobunyaviruses, including West Nile, Rift Valley fever, and chikungunya viruses, with zoonotic potential have emerged from Africa to cause major outbreaks in previously unaffected areas (1). Horses are highly sensitive to some of these viruses and have been used as sentinels for the identification of arboviruses associated with neurologic disease in South Africa (2). During the seasonal occurrence of common vector-borne diseases such as African horse sickness and equine encephalosis, many horses have febrile, neurologic, and fatal infections for which the etiology remains undetermined.