Diagnosis of hantavirus infection in humans and rodents in Ribeirão Preto, State of São Paulo, Brazil.
BACKGROUND
Hantavirus pulmonary and cardiovascular syndrome (HPCS) is an emerging serious disease in the Americas. Hantaviruses (Bunyaviridae) are the causative agents of this syndrome and are mainly transmitted through inhalation of aerosols containing the excreta of wild rodents. In the Ribeirão Preto region (state of São Paulo, Brazil), HPCS has been reported since 1998, caused by the Araraquara virus (ARAV), for which Necromys lasiurus is the rodent reservoir. This study aimed to show diagnostic results relating to infection in humans and rodents, obtained at the Virology Research Center of the Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, between 2005 and 2008.


METHODS
HPCS was diagnosed by means of ELISA and/or RT-PCR in 11 (21.2%) out of 52 suspected cases, and 54.4% of these were fatal. Furthermore, 595 wild rodents (Necromys lasiurus, Akodon sp, Calomys tener and Oligoryzomys sp) were caught between 2005 and 2008.


RESULTS
Fifteen (2.5%) of these rodents presented antibodies for hantavirus, as follows: Necromys lasiurus (4%), Calomys tener (1.9%) and Akodon sp (1.5%). Nucleotide sequences obtained through RT-PCR from one HPCS patient and one Calomys tener rodent were compared with hantavirus sequences from GenBank, which showed that both were homologous with ARAV.


CONCLUSIONS
This work corroborates previous studies showing that ARAV is the hantavirus causing HPCS in the Ribeirão Preto region. It also shows that rodents infected with hantavirus represent a constant risk of transmission of this virus to man.
Figueiredo
Glauciane Garcia de
GG
Virology Research Center, School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.
Borges
Alessandra Abel
AA
Campos
Gelse Mazzoni
GM
Machado
Alex Martins
AM
Saggioro
Fabiano Pinto
FP
Sabino Júnior
Gilberto Dos Santos
Gdos S
Badra
Soraya Jabur
SJ
Ortiz
Alberto Anastacio Amarilla
AA
Figueiredo
Luiz Tadeu Moraes
LT
D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D004197:Disease Reservoirs / Q000662:veterinary*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006476:Orthohantavirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D018804:Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010802:Phylogeny; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012376:Rodent Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D000914:Antibodies, Viral