Human Orthobunyavirus Infections, Tef é, Amazonas, Brazil

REPORT Between April and June 2015, professionals of the health surveillance system at Tefé (03° 21′ 14″ S; 64° 42′ 39″ W), a mid-size city located in the interior of the Amazonas state, Brazil, collected serum samples from a series of dengue suspected cases. The specimens were obtained between the first and second day after symptom onset and sent to Fundação de Medicina Tropical – Dr. Heitor Vieira Dourado (FMT-HVD) at Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil for dengue virus (DENV) testing using RT-PCR 1. Thirty DENV negative samples were randomly selected and sent to Instituto Leônidas e Maria Deane (ILMD), Fiocruz Amazônia, to investigate other Amazonian endemic arboviruses 2,3,4,5. At ILMD, samples were tested using a multiplexed reverse transcription real-time PCR protocol for Oropouche, and Oropouche-like viruses, (OROV, Peribunyaviridae family, genus Orthobunyavirus), targeting the S segment; as well as for Mayaro virus (MAYV, Togaviridae family, Alphavirus genus) aiming the NSP1 coding region 6. All patients gave written informed consent, and the principal investigators anonymized the participants’ data. The ethics committee of FMT-HVD approved the study under the registration number 700.915 We detected nine OROV or OROV-like positive cases (TF031; TF036; TF070; TF081; TF086; TF087; TF100; TF101; TF103), seven males and two females, with a mean age of 36.2 years (range 8 – 63), living in either rural or urban areas of Tefé. Regarding the...
Source: PLOS Currents Outbreaks - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Source Type: research