Cantacuzino National Medico-Military Institute for Research and Development, 103 Splaiul Independenței, 050096, Bucharest, Romania.
National Institute of Blood Transfusion, 2-8 Dr. C-tin Caracaş, 011155, Bucharest, Romania.
Parasit Vectors. 2018 Oct 26;11(1):562. doi: 10.1186/s13071-018-3145-5.
West Nile virus (WNV) is endemic in southeastern Romania and, after the unprecedented urban epidemic in Bucharest in 1996 caused by lineage 1 WNV, cases of West Nile fever have been recorded every year. Furthermore, a new outbreak occurred in 2010, this time produced by a lineage 2 WNV belonging to the Eastern European clade (Volgograd 2007-like strain), which was detected in humans and mosquitoes in the following years.
We report here, for the first time, the emergence, in 2015, of lineage 2 WNV belonging to the monophyletic Central/Southern European group of strains which replaced in 2016, the previously endemized lineage 2 WNV Volgograd 2007-like strain in mosquito populations. The emerged WNV strain harbors H249P (NS3 protein) and I159T (E glycoprotein) substitutions, which have been previously associated in other studies with neurovirulence and efficient vector transmission.
In 2016, both early amplification of the emerged WNV and complete replacement in mosquito populations of the previously endemized WNV occurred in southeastern Romania. These events were associated with a significant outbreak of severe West Nile neuroinvasive disease in humans.
西尼罗河病毒（WNV）在罗马尼亚东南部流行，1996 年布加勒斯特发生了由 1 型 WNV 引起的前所未有的城市疫情后，每年都有西尼罗河热病例记录。此外，2010 年又发生了一次新的疫情，这次由属于东欧分支的 2 型 WNV 引起（与 2007 年伏尔加格勒株相似的株），次年在人和蚊子中检测到该病毒。
我们首次报告了 2015 年出现了 2 型 WNV 分支，属于单系中/南欧株群，该病毒株在 2016 年取代了先前流行的 2 型 WNV 伏尔加格勒 2007 株。新出现的 WNV 株携带 H249P（NS3 蛋白）和 I159T（E 糖蛋白）取代，在其他研究中这些取代与神经毒力和有效媒介传播有关。
2016 年，新出现的 WNV 在罗马尼亚东南部地区迅速扩增，并完全取代了先前流行的 WNV。这些事件与人类西尼罗河神经侵袭性疾病的严重爆发有关。
