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High Diversity of RNA Viruses in Rodents, Ethiopia - - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC
High Diversity of RNA Viruses in Rodents, Ethiopia
Yonas Meheretu
1, Dagmar Čížková
1, Jana Těšíková, Kiros Welegerima, Zewdneh Tomas, Dawit Kidane, Kokob Girmay, Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, Josef Bryja, Stephan Günther, Anna Bryjová, Herwig Leirs, and Joëlle Goüy de Bellocq
Author affiliations: Author affiliations: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Brno, Czech Republic (Y. Meheretu, D. Čížková, J. Těšíková, J. Bryja, A. Bryjová, J. Goüy de Bellocq); Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia (Y. Meheretu, K. Welegerima, Z. Tomas, D. Kidane, K. Girmay); University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium (Y. Meheretu, H. Leirs, J. Goüy de Bellocq); Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany (J. Schmidt-Chanasit, S. Günther)
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Abstract
We investigated synanthropic small mammals in the Ethiopian Highlands as potential reservoirs for human pathogens and found that 2 rodent species, the Ethiopian white-footed mouse and Awash multimammate mouse, are carriers of novel Mobala virus strains. The white-footed mouse also carries a novel hantavirus, the second Murinae-associated hantavirus found in Africa.Most emerging infectious diseases of humans or domestic animals are zoonoses, and among emerging pathogens, RNA viruses are highly represented (
1). The synanthropic nature of some rodent species makes them important reservoirs of RNA viruses pathogenic to humans, such as hantaviruses (e.g., Seoul virus in black and Norway rats worldwide) and arenaviruses (e.g., Lassa virus in the multimammate mouse in western Africa or lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus in the house mouse worldwide). In Africa, members of the rodent genera
Mastomys and
Arvicanthis are linked to human activity; these rodents are widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa and are crop pests and zoonotic reservoirs for human pathogens. Histories of synanthropy are likely longest for rodents in areas of early human sedentism, making RNA virus richness in early centers of domestication such as the Ethiopian Highlands of particular interest.
Hantaviruses (family
Bunyaviridae) are RNA viruses primarily carried by rodents and soricomorphs (shrews and moles), although 2 new species have recently been described in bats (
2,
3). Arenaviruses (family
Arenaviridae) are primarily rodent-borne RNA viruses. Members of both genera can cause life-threatening diseases in humans: arenaviruses cause hemorrhagic fevers in the Americas and Africa, and hantaviruses cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Asia and Europe and hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas. In Africa, only Lassa and Lujo arenaviruses are known to be highly pathogenic to humans. In contrast, hantaviruses have not yet been found to cause life-threatening human diseases in Africa, but hantavirus-specific antibodies have been found in human serum samples from several countries in Africa (
4,
5). To investigate the role of synanthropic small mammals as potential reservoirs of emerging pathogens in Ethiopia, we sampled rodent and shrew species in areas near human habitations and screened them for hantavirus and arenavirus RNA.
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