University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2013 Jun;88(6):1159-62. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.12-0586. Epub 2013 Apr 8.
Powassan virus and its subtype, deer tick virus, are closely related tick-borne flaviviruses that circulate in North America. The incidence of human infection by these agents appears to have increased in recent years. To define exposure patterns among white-tailed deer, potentially useful sentinels that are frequently parasitized by ticks, we screened serum samples collected during 1979-2010 in Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont for neutralizing antibody by using a novel recombinant deer tick virus-West Nile virus chimeric virus. Evidence of exposure was detected in all three states. Overall our results demonstrate that seroprevalence is variable in time and space, suggesting that risk of exposure to Powassan virus is similarly variable.
波瓦桑病毒及其亚型鹿蜱病毒是密切相关的蜱传黄病毒，在北美洲流行。近年来，这些病原体感染人类的发病率似乎有所增加。为了确定白尾鹿（经常被蜱寄生的可能有用的指示动物）的暴露模式，我们利用一种新型重组鹿蜱病毒-西尼罗河病毒嵌合病毒，对 1979 年至 2010 年间在康涅狄格州、缅因州和佛蒙特州采集的血清样本进行了中和抗体检测。在这三个州均发现了暴露的证据。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，血清阳性率在时间和空间上是可变的，这表明接触波瓦桑病毒的风险也是相似的。
