West Nile encephalitis in Israel, 1999: the New York connection.
We describe two cases of West Nile (WN) encephalitis in a married couple in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1999. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction performed on a brain specimen from the husband detected a WN viral strain nearly identical to avian strains recovered in Israel in 1998 (99.9% genomic sequence homology) and in New York in 1999 (99.8%). This result supports the hypothesis that the 1999 WN virus epidemic in the United States originated from the introduction of a strain that had been circulating in Israel.
Giladi
M
M
Bernard Pridan Laboratory for Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, 6 Weizman Street, Tel Aviv 64239, Israel. giladi@tasmc.health.gov.il
Metzkor-Cotter
E
E
Martin
D A
DA
Siegman-Igra
Y
Y
Korczyn
A D
AD
Rosso
R
R
Berger
S A
SA
Campbell
G L
GL
Lanciotti
R S
RS
D000368:Aged; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D001921:Brain / Q000821:virology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000097:blood / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014901:West Nile Fever / Q000097:blood / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology*; D014902:West Nile virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification
D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D007075:Immunoglobulin M; D012367:RNA, Viral