Imported Case of Acute Respiratory Tract Infection Associated with a Member of Species Nelson Bay Orthoreovirus

Abstract

A Japanese man suffered from acute respiratory tract infection after returning to Japan from Bali, Indonesia in 2007. Miyazaki-Bali/2007, a strain of the species of Nelson Bay orthoreovirus, was isolated from the patient's throat swab using Vero cells, in which syncytium formation was observed. This is the sixth report describing a patient with respiratory tract infection caused by an orthoreovirus classified to the species of Nelson Bay orthoreovirus. Given the possibility that all of the patients were infected in Malaysia and Indonesia, prospective surveillance on orthoreovirus infections should be carried out in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, contact surveillance study suggests that the risk of human-to-human infection of the species of Nelson Bay orthoreovirus would seem to be low.

Pteropine orthoreovirus: An important emerging virus causing infectious disease in the tropics?

“…This prompted the authors to speculate that the patient may have been infected in Indonesia [9]. Similar to the Hong Kong case, if PRV is prevalent in Japan, one would expect more endemic cases of PRV being reported in Japan.…”

“…The bat samples includes heart blood, urine, lung specimens, intestinal specimens, and salivary swabs. In the seven isolates recovered from human samples, three cases were known to have been exposed to fruit bats, while the other four cases made no specific mention of exposure to bats, though there was history of visits to places with the potential presence of fruit bats [4][5][6][7][8][9]. With this backdrop, it appears highly likely that fruit bats (Pteropus spp.…”

“…In patients infected by MRV, the illness that it caused has been described as mild and self-limiting [3]. Of all the cases of documented PRV infection in humans, the majority of them suffered from acute respiratory disease or influenza-like illness [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Similarly, in patients affected by PRV, the illness was self-limiting, as all documented patients eventually made an uneventful, full recovery [4,5,[7][8][9].…”

“…Nonetheless, some patients infected by PRV developed severe illness [4]. The severe illness included high fever, followed by cough or sore throat, with some systemic symptoms such as generalized weakness and myalgia [4][5][6][7][8][9]. It is important to note that the sore throat described was severe in nature and the fever was high [4,5,7].…”

“…It is fortunate that based on the documented cases of PRV infection, none of the patients suffered from any severe complication or death; all of them eventually made an uneventful, full recovery from their illness [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”