Chin C, Chiueh T S, Yang W C, Yang T H, Shih C M, Lin H T, Lin K C, Lien J C, Tsai T F, Ruo S L, Nichol S T, Ksiazek T G, Rollin P E, Peters C J, Wu T N, Shen C Y
Graduate Institute of Life Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
J Med Virol. 2000 Feb;60(2):237-47. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(200002)60:2<237::aid-jmv21>3.0.co;2-b.
Hantaviruses are rodent-borne viruses, and they, mainly the Hantaan (HTN) serotype, are the causative agents of a group of febrile nephropathies known as "hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). " Despite the fact that HFRS is frequently reported in China, with an annual incidence of 50,000-100,000 cases, one puzzling observation that no local case of HFRS has been confirmed in Taiwan has yet to be explained. We hypothesized that the hantavirus strain prevailing in Taiwan mainly belongs to the mild strain, the Seoul (SEO) strain, and the absence of severe disease was related to the absence of HTN. To test these hypotheses, this epidemiologic study was performed, including a seroprevalence survey and phylogenetic analysis on hantavirus isolated from the rodent population trapped in major seaports, rural, and mountainous areas of Taiwan. This study also included rodents and viruses from two isolated islands, Kinmen and Matzu, which are geographically adjacent to the east coast of mainland China. There were a total of 5,461 rodents of 16 species captured, and R. norvegicus was the most common species, with an antibody prevalence much higher in international seaports (20%) than in rural regions (approximately 5%) and intermediate in some domestic seaports. By reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 33.9% of the seropositive R. norvegicus were found to have amplifiable hantavirus sequences in their lung tissues, and subsequent phylogenetic analyses indicated that almost all hantavirus in Taiwan was most closely related to the prototype SEO strain, and no HTN strain was recovered from any rodent species indigenous to Taiwan. The seroprevalence of SEO infection in R. norvegicus on Kinmen and Matzu was also different from that in southern provinces of China but closely resembled that in seaports in Taiwan, and the SEO identified was genetically linked to Taiwanese SEO strains. These results substantiate our hypotheses, and suggest that the epidemiology of hantavirus infection in Taiwan are different from that in China, where the HTN and SEO strains and HFRS concurrently prevail.
汉坦病毒是由啮齿动物传播的病毒，主要是汉滩（HTN）血清型，是一组被称为“肾综合征出血热（HFRS）”的发热性肾病的病原体。尽管在中国HFRS经常被报道，年发病率为50000 - 100000例，但一个令人困惑的现象是，台湾尚未确诊本地HFRS病例，这一现象尚待解释。我们推测，在台湾流行的汉坦病毒株主要属于温和株，即汉城（SEO）株，而严重疾病的缺失与HTN株的缺失有关。为了验证这些假设，我们进行了这项流行病学研究，包括对从台湾主要海港、农村和山区捕获的啮齿动物种群中分离出的汉坦病毒进行血清流行率调查和系统发育分析。这项研究还包括来自两个与中国大陆东海岸地理相邻的离岛金门和马祖的啮齿动物和病毒。总共捕获了16种5461只啮齿动物，褐家鼠是最常见的物种，其抗体流行率在国际海港（20%）远高于农村地区（约5%），在一些国内海港处于中间水平。通过逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR），发现33.9%的血清阳性褐家鼠在其肺组织中有可扩增的汉坦病毒序列，随后的系统发育分析表明，台湾几乎所有的汉坦病毒与原型SEO株关系最为密切，且未从台湾本土的任何啮齿动物物种中分离出HTN株。金门和马祖褐家鼠中SEO感染的血清流行率也与中国南方省份不同，但与台湾海港的情况非常相似，并且鉴定出的SEO与台湾的SEO株存在基因联系。这些结果证实了我们的假设，并表明台湾汉坦病毒感染的流行病学与中国不同，在中国HTN株和SEO株以及HFRS同时流行。
