West Nile virus lineage 2 infection in a blood donor from Vienna, Austria, August 2014.
Eastern Austria is neighbouring regions with ongoing West Nile virus (WNV) transmissions. Three human WNV infections had been diagnosed during the past decade in Austria. The Austrian Red Cross Blood Service (ARC-BS) started a first voluntary screening for WNV in blood donors from Eastern Austria by Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) in June 2014. This is also the most extensive WNV surveillance programme in humans in Austria so far. In August 2014, one autochthonous WNV infection was detected in a blood donor from Vienna. By now, one in 67,800 whole blood donations was found to be positive for WNV RNA.
Austrian Red Cross, Blood Service for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, 1040 Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: jungbauer@redcross.at.
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C
Jungbauer
German Red Cross, Blood Service for Baden-Württemberg-Hessen, Frankfurt, Germany.
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MK
Hourfar
Department of Virology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
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K
Stiasny
Department of Virology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
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SW
Aberle
Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research, Hamburg, Germany.
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Cadar
Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus and Haemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research, Hamburg, Germany; German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), partner site Hamburg-Luebeck-Borstel, Hamburg, Germany.
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J
Schmidt-Chanasit
Austrian Red Cross, Blood Service for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, 1040 Vienna, Austria.
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WR
Mayr
D000328:Adult; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D001782:Blood Donors; D005260:Female; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques; D010802:Phylogeny; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood; D014901:West Nile Fever / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology*; D014902:West Nile virus / Q000302:isolation & purification*
D012367:RNA, Viral
Austria; Blood donor; Full-length genome; Phylogeny; West Nile virus