Detection of enzootic circulation of a new strain of West Nile virus lineage 1 in sentinel chickens in the north of Tunisia

Amdouni, Jihane; Monaco, Federica; Portanti, Ottavio; Sghaier, Soufien; Conte, Annamaria; Hassine, Thameur Ben; Polci, Andrea; Valleriani, Fabrizia; Gennaro, Annapia Di; Zoueri, Mohamed; Savini, Giovanni; Hammami, Salah

doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2019.105223

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…A close similarity has been observed between the Israeli-American strains (1998–2000) and the PaH001 Tunisian strain of 1997, supporting the hypothesis of a possible flow of WNV between Africa and the New World via the middle East [ 14 ]. This hypothesis is corroborated by i) the enormous avian biodiversity of Tunisia, considered an important flyway for birds migrating from Africa to northern countries [ 73 ]; ii) the circulation of WNV in Cx . pipiens competent mosquitoes, birds, horses, and humans in the country [ 41 , 91 ] and iii) the WNV-L1 meningo-encephalitis outbreak, characterized by 173 human cases and 8 deaths, occurred in Tunisia in 1997, one and three years before the first detection of WNV in Israel and United States, respectively [ 44 , 104 , 107 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Epidemiology of West Nile virus in Africa: An underestimated threat

et al. 2022

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Background West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus which has been posing continuous challenges to public health worldwide due to the identification of new lineages and clades and its ability to invade and establish in an increasing number of countries. Its current distribution, genetic variability, ecology, and epidemiological pattern in the African continent are only partially known despite the general consensus on the urgency to obtain such information for quantifying the actual disease burden in Africa other than to predict future threats at global scale. Methodology and principal findings References were searched in PubMed and Google Scholar electronic databases on January 21, 2020, using selected keywords, without language and date restriction. Additional manual searches of reference list were carried out. Further references have been later added accordingly to experts’ opinion. We included 153 scientific papers published between 1940 and 2021. This review highlights: (i) the co-circulation of WNV-lineages 1, 2, and 8 in the African continent; (ii) the presence of diverse WNV competent vectors in Africa, mainly belonging to the Culex genus; (iii) the lack of vector competence studies for several other mosquito species found naturally infected with WNV in Africa; (iv) the need of more competence studies to be addressed on ticks; (iv) evidence of circulation of WNV among humans, animals and vectors in at least 28 Countries; (v) the lack of knowledge on the epidemiological situation of WNV for 19 Countries and (vii) the importance of carrying out specific serological surveys in order to avoid possible bias on WNV circulation in Africa. Conclusions This study provides the state of art on WNV investigation carried out in Africa, highlighting several knowledge gaps regarding i) the current WNV distribution and genetic diversity, ii) its ecology and transmission chains including the role of different arthropods and vertebrate species as competent reservoirs, and iii) the real disease burden for humans and animals. This review highlights the needs for further research and coordinated surveillance efforts on WNV in Africa.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…However, the high viral circulation among birds in Africa is documented by seroprevalence studies carried out in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Southern Sudan, Senegal, Madagascar, and South Africa, as summarized in Fig 2 and Table 4 [34,41,45,56,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76].…”

Section: West Nile Virus Epidemiology In African Vertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiology of West Nile virus in Africa: An underestimated threat

et al. 2022

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“…However, due to the geographically huge non-breeding areas for the species which might cover most of sub-Saharan Africa, it is difficult to exactly assess the place where the infection originated. As the infected bird species, while on migration, might spend some time in Northern Africa [54], in stop-over sites where WNV has been previously detected [68,69], the possibility of these birds to get infected with WNV while they were there cannot be discarded [70].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

West Nile and Usutu Virus Introduction via Migratory Birds: A Retrospective Analysis in Italy

Mancuso

Cecere

Iapaolo

et al. 2022

Viruses

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The actual contribution of migratory birds in spreading West Nile (WNV) and Usutu virus (USUV) across Europe and from Africa to old countries is still controversial. In this study, we reported the results of molecular and serological surveys on migrating birds sampled during peaks of spring and autumn migration at 11 Italian sites located along important flyways, from 2012 to 2014. A total of 1335 specimens made of individual or pooled sera, and organs from 275 dead birds were tested for WNV and USUV RNA by real time PCR (RT-PCR). Furthermore, sera were tested by serum neutralization assay for detecting WNV and USUV neutralizing antibodies. Molecular tests detected WNV lineage 2 RNA in a pool made of three Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) sera sampled in autumn, and lineage 1 in kidneys of six trans-Saharan birds sampled in spring. Neutralizing antibodies against WNV and USUV were found in 5.80% (n = 72; 17 bird species) and 0.32% (n = 4; 4 bird species) of the tested sera, respectively. Our results do not exclude the role of migratory birds as potential spreaders of WNV and USUV from Africa and Central Europe to Mediterranean areas and highlight the importance of a more extensive active surveillance of zoonotic viruses.

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“…Unfortunately, we could not compare these new sequences to those that circulated in Europe and the Mediterranean basin during the same year. To our best knowledge, no European sequence from 2018 was published in GenBank at writing time except few sequences from Greece Germany and Hungary 2018 belonging to WNV-lineage 2 (Chaintoutis et al, 2019;Nagy et al, 2019;Ziegler et al, 2019 Furthermore, WNV sequences from Tunisia were reported from previous neuroinvasives infections in humans in 2003 and 2012 (Monastiri et al, 2018;Riabi et al, 2014), from Culex pipiens mosquitoes collected in September 2014 (Fares et al, 2016) and from sentinel chickens September 2016 to January 2017 (Amdouni et al, 2019). All these sequences belonged to the same sublineage 1a, but could not be included in our phylogenetic analyses given that they were obtained in other genomic regions (NS3 and NS5 regions).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, we cannot know whether similar sequences have circulated in other Mediterranean and European countries during this epidemic year. Furthermore, WNV sequences from Tunisia were reported from previous neuroinvasives infections in humans in 2003 and 2012 (Monastiri et al, 2018; Riabi et al., 2014), from Culex pipiens mosquitoes collected in September 2014 (Fares et al., 2016) and from sentinel chickens September 2016 to January 2017 (Amdouni et al., 2019). All these sequences belonged to the same sublineage 1a, but could not be included in our phylogenetic analyses given that they were obtained in other genomic regions (NS3 and NS5 regions).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic characterization of West Nile Virus strains during neuroinvasives infection outbreak in Tunisia, 2018

Gdoura

Dhrif

Touzi

et al. 2020

Transbound Emerg Dis

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West Nile Virus (WNV) is a vector-borne flavivirus mainly transmitted by Culex mosquitoes in sylvatic cycles involving birds, as amplifying host, and bird-feeding mosquitoes, as vectors (Jourdain et al., 2007;Turell, 2012; Vázquezet al., 2011). Humans and equines are considered as incidental dead-end hosts (Mcvey et al., 2015).WNV was first isolated from a febrile woman in 1937 in Uganda (Smithburn et al., 1940); nowadays, it is recognized as one of the most widespread arbovirus worldwide with major public health concerns. Related infections have been reported in Africa, Middle East,

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Detection of enzootic circulation of a new strain of West Nile virus lineage 1 in sentinel chickens in the north of Tunisia

Cited by 10 publications

References 34 publications

Epidemiology of West Nile virus in Africa: An underestimated threat

Epidemiology of West Nile virus in Africa: An underestimated threat

West Nile and Usutu Virus Introduction via Migratory Birds: A Retrospective Analysis in Italy

Genetic characterization of West Nile Virus strains during neuroinvasives infection outbreak in Tunisia, 2018

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