Center for Animal Disease Control, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan.
Department of Veterinary Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki 889-2192, Japan.
Viruses. 2021 Feb 2;13(2):229. doi: 10.3390/v13020229.
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) is the causative agent of SFTS, an emerging tick-borne disease in East Asia, and is maintained in enzootic cycles involving ticks and a range of wild animal hosts. Direct transmission of SFTSV from cats and dogs to humans has been identified in Japan, suggesting that veterinarians and veterinary nurses involved in small-animal practice are at occupational risk of SFTSV infection. To characterize this risk, we performed a sero-epidemiological survey in small-animal-practice workers and healthy blood donors in Miyazaki prefecture, which is the prefecture with the highest per capita number of recorded cases of SFTS in Japan. Three small-animal-practice workers were identified as seropositive by ELISA, but one had a negative neutralization-test result and so was finally determined to be seronegative, giving a seropositive rate of 2.2% (2 of 90), which was significantly higher than that in healthy blood donors (0%, 0 of 1000; < 0.05). The seroprevalence identified here in small-animal-practice workers was slightly higher than that previously reported in other high-risk workers engaged in agriculture and forestry in Japan. Thus, enhancement of small-animal-practice workers' awareness of biosafety at animal hospitals is necessary for control of SFTSV.
严重发热伴血小板减少综合征病毒 (SFTSV) 是引起严重发热伴血小板减少综合征 (SFTS) 的病原体，这是一种在东亚新兴的蜱传疾病，在涉及蜱和多种野生动物宿主的地方性循环中得到维持。SFTSV 已在日本从猫和狗直接传播给人类，这表明从事小动物临床实践的兽医和兽医护士存在 SFTSV 感染的职业风险。为了描述这种风险，我们在日本 SFTS 记录病例人均数量最高的宫崎县的小动物临床实践工作者和健康献血者中进行了血清流行病学调查。通过 ELISA 检测，有 3 名小动物临床实践工作者被确定为血清阳性，但其中 1 人的中和试验结果为阴性，因此最终被确定为血清阴性，血清阳性率为 2.2%（90 人中有 2 人），明显高于健康献血者（0%，1000 人中有 0 人；<0.05）。这里在小动物临床实践工作者中确定的血清流行率略高于日本从事农业和林业的其他高危工作者之前报告的流行率。因此，需要增强动物医院中小动物临床实践工作者的生物安全意识，以控制 SFTSV。
