West Nile virus circulation in south-eastern Romania, 2011 to 2013

S Dinu; A I Cotar; I R Pănculescu-Gătej; E Fălcuţă; F L Prioteasa; A Sîrbu; G Oprişan; D Bădescu; P Reiter; C S Ceianu

doi:10.2807/1560-7917.ES2015.20.20.21130

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West Nile virus circulation in south-eastern Romania, 2011 to 2013
S Dinu^1,2 , A I Cotar^3,4 , I R Pănculescu-Gătej³ , E Fălcuţă³ , F L Prioteasa³ , A Sîrbu⁵ , G Oprişan¹ , D Bădescu³ , P Reiter⁶ , C S Ceianu³
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Affiliations: ¹ Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory, “Cantacuzino” National Institute of Research-Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Bucharest, Romania ² Genetics Department, Faculty of Biology, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania ³ Vector-Borne Infections and Medical Entomology Laboratory, “Cantacuzino” National Institute of Research-Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Bucharest, Romania ⁴ The European Programme for Public Health Microbiology Training (EUPHEM), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden ⁵ National Institute of Public Health–National Centre for Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases, Bucharest, Romania ⁶ Unité Insectes et Maladies Infectieuses, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Correspondence:
C Ceianu
ceianu cantacuzino.ro
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Citation style for this article: Dinu S, Cotar A I, Pănculescu-Gătej I R, Fălcuţă E, Prioteasa F L, Sîrbu A, Oprişan G, Bădescu D, Reiter P, Ceianu C S. West Nile virus circulation in south-eastern Romania, 2011 to 2013. Euro Surveill. 2015;20(20):pii=21130. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2015.20.20.21130 Received: 10 Jul 2014

Abstract

Lineage 2 West Nile virus (WNV), previously found only in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar, was identified in Hungary in 2004 and has rapidly expanded in Europe in the past decade. Following a significant outbreak of West Nile fever with neurological cases caused by lineage 1 WNV in Romania in 1996, scattered cases have been recorded in the south-east of the country in each transmission season. Another outbreak, affecting a larger area and caused by lineage 2 WNV, was recorded in 2010. We analysed human sera from neuroinvasive West Nile fever cases and mosquitoes, sampled in south-eastern Romania between 2011 and 2013, for the presence of WNV genome, and obtained partial NS5 and envelope glycoprotein sequences. Human- and mosquito-derived WNV sequences were highly similar (99%) to Volgograd 2007 lineage 2 WNV and differed from isolates previously detected in central and southern Europe. WNV was detected in one pool of Culex pipiens s.l. males, documenting vertical transmission. Lineage 4 WNV, of unknown pathogenicity to mammals, was found in the amphibian-feeding mosquito Uranotaenia unguiculata from the Danube Delta. Our results present molecular evidence for the maintenance of the same isolates of Volgograd 2007-like lineage 2 WNV in south-eastern Romania between 2011 and 2013.