Update on the West Nile virus situation in Germany in 2020
In 2020, the third year of autochthonous transmission of West Nile virus (WNV) to birds and horses in Germany, we recorded a decrease in the number of notifiable cases in birds (n=64) and horses (n=22).This decrease was apparent in WNV-infection hotspot areas (i.e., Berlin, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt). At the same time, we observed that WNV expanded its geographic range to neighboring federal states (e.g., Lower Saxony) and districts in Brandenburg and Thuringia. Using high-throughput sequencing, we generated 44 WNV whole-genome sequences. Thirty-eight WNV whole-genome sequences acquired from the 2020 epizooty belonged to the WNV Eastern German Subclade (EGC), which was the dominant variant reported in the previous years in Germany.