title: West Nile virus infections in Greece: an update.
abstract: Approximately 2 years have passed since the detection of the first human case of West Nile virus (WNV) infection in Greece, which was the starting signal of a large outbreak in 2010, followed by a second one in 2011. More than 250 neuroinvasive disease cases with 15% fatality were observed during the two WNV seasons. WNV lineage 2 sequences were obtained from blood donors, Culex mosquitoes, wild birds and sentinel chickens. The Greek WNV strain shows high genetic relatedness to the goshawk-Hungary/04 WNV strain; an amino acid substitution in nonstructural protein 3 (H249P) is observed, which has been previously associated with increased virus transmission. This article provides an overview of the WNV outbreaks in Greece and discusses the knowledge gained from these events.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, National Reference Centre for Arboviruses, Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece. annap@med.auth.gr
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Papa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001715:Bird Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology; D001717:Birds; D002645:Chickens; D003465:Culex / Q000821:virology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006115:Greece / Q000453:epidemiology; D006734:Horse Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology; D006736:Horses; D006801:Humans; D007303:Insect Vectors / Q000821:virology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D011201:Poultry Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology; D012621:Seasons; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D014901:West Nile Fever / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology; D014902:West Nile virus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification