In China, 5 patients with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) associated with type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) were identified by an AFP surveillance system from 1996 through 2009. A maximum-likelihood tree shows that all 5 Chinese VDPVs were independent. These 5 VDPVs were 100-216 d old according to the number of synonymous substitutions per synonymous site and 176-292 d old according to the number of substitutions per site. This result indicates limited virus replication since the administration of the initiating oral polio vaccine (OPV) dose, which is consistent with the rapid evolution rate of poliovirus genomes. The above-mentioned VDPVs have important implications in the global polio eradication initiative. Localized, limited, and transient circulation may be typical of OPVs; hence, independent VDPVs could be found because of the large population and excellent surveillance system, which permitted early detection and response, but sustained transmission was limited because of high population immunity.

Historically, Japanese Encephalitis virus (JEV) genotype III (GIII) has been responsible for human diseases. In recent years, JEV genotype I (GI) has been isolated from mosquitoes collected in numerous countries, but has not been isolated from patients with encephalitis. In this study, we report recovery of JEV GI live virus and identification of JEV GI RNA from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of encephalitis patients in JE endemic areas of China. Whole-genome sequencing and molecular phylogenetic analysis of the JEV isolate from the CSF samples was performed. The isolate in this study is highly similar to other JEV GI strains which isolated from mosquitoes at both the nucleotide and deduced amino acid levels. Phylogenetic analysis based on the genomic sequence showed that the isolate belongs to JEV GI, which is consistent with the phylogenetic analysis based on the pre-membrane (PrM) and Glycoprotein genes. As a conclusion, this is the first time to isolate JEV GI strain from CSF samples of encephalitis patients, so continuous survey and evaluate the infectivity and pathogenecity of JEV GI strains are necessary, especially for the JEV GI strains from encephalitis patients. With respect to the latter, because all current JEV vaccines (live and inactivated are derived from JEV GIII strains, future studies should be aimed at investigating and monitoring cross-protection of the human JEV GI isolates against widely used JEV vaccines.

A poliomyelitis outbreak caused by type 1 circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) was identified in China in 2004. Six independent cVDPVs (eight isolates) could be grouped into a single cluster with pathways of divergence different from a single cVDPV progenitor, which circulated and evolved into both a highly neurovirulent lineage and a less neurovirulent lineage. They were as neurovirulent as the wild type 1 Mahoney strain, recombination was absent, and their nucleotide 480-G was identical to that of the Sabin strain. The Guizhou/China cVDPV strains shared 4 amino acid replacements in the NAg sites: 3 located at the BC loop, which may underlie the aberrant results of the ELISA intratypic differentiation (ITD) test. The complete ORF tree diverged into two main branches from a common ancestral infection estimated to have occurred in about mid-September 2003, nine months before the appearance of the VDPV case, which indicated recently evolved VDPV. Further, recombination with species C enteroviruses may indicate the presence and density of these enteroviruses in the population and prolonged virus circulation in the community. The aforementioned cVDPVs has important implications in the global initiative to eradicate polio: high quality surveillance permitted earliest detection and response.

The proportion of laboratory-confirmed Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus (JEV) infections was compared to the number of JE cases reported on the basis of seasonality and the clinical symptoms of hospitalized patients in Guizhou Province, China, between April and November 2006. Of the 1,837 patients with reported JE, 1,382 patients in nine prefectures were investigated. JE was confirmed in 1,210 of 1,382 (87.6%) patients by a JEV-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (MAC-ELISA), heminested reverse transcriptase PCR, and virus isolation. Two strains of JEV belonging to genotype 1 were isolated. Other viral pathogens responsible for encephalitis, including echovirus, mumps virus, herpes simplex virus, and cytomegalovirus, were identified in 67 of 172 (38.9%) JE-negative cases. On the basis of the distribution of the laboratory-confirmed JE cases from different hospitals according to the Chinese administrative division, which included hospitals at the provincial, city, county, and township levels, county hospitals detected the highest number of JE cases (81.8%), whereas township hospitals detected the smallest number of JE cases (1.4%). Provincial and city hospitals had the highest and lowest rates of accuracy of providing a clinical diagnosis of JE, as confirmed by laboratory testing (91.8% and 76.7%, respectively). This study demonstrates that laboratory confirmation improves the accuracy of diagnosis of JE and that an enhanced laboratory capacity is critical for JE surveillance as well as the identification of other pathogens that cause encephalitic syndromes with clinical symptoms similar to those caused by JEV infection.

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