Institute of Virology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria.
Center for Virology, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Viruses. 2022 Jul 11;14(7):1516. doi: 10.3390/v14071516.
Urban environments represent unique ecosystems where dense human populations may come into contact with wildlife species, some of which are established or potential reservoirs for zoonotic pathogens that cause human diseases. Finding practical ways to monitor the presence and/or abundance of zoonotic pathogens is important to estimate the risk of spillover to humans in cities. As brown rats () are ubiquitous in urban habitats, and are hosts of several zoonotic viruses, we conducted longitudinal sampling of brown rats in Vienna, Austria, a large population center in Central Europe. We investigated rat tissues for the presence of several zoonotic viruses, including flaviviruses, hantaviruses, coronaviruses, poxviruses, hepatitis E virus, encephalomyocarditis virus, and influenza A virus. Although we found no evidence of active infections (all were negative for viral nucleic acids) among 96 rats captured between 2016 and 2018, our study supports the findings of others, suggesting that monitoring urban rats may be an efficient way to estimate the activity of zoonotic viruses in urban environments.
城市环境代表着独特的生态系统，密集的人口可能会与野生动物接触，其中一些野生动物是导致人类疾病的人畜共患病病原体的既定或潜在宿主。寻找实用的方法来监测人畜共患病病原体的存在和/或丰度对于估计城市中病原体溢出到人类的风险非常重要。由于棕色家鼠 () 在城市栖息地中无处不在，并且是几种人畜共患病病毒的宿主，我们对奥地利维也纳的棕色家鼠进行了纵向采样，维也纳是中欧的一个人口密集中心。我们调查了大鼠组织中几种人畜共患病病毒的存在情况，包括黄病毒、汉坦病毒、冠状病毒、痘病毒、戊型肝炎病毒、脑心肌炎病毒和甲型流感病毒。尽管我们在 2016 年至 2018 年间捕获的 96 只大鼠中均未发现（所有病毒核酸均为阴性）有活跃感染的证据，但我们的研究支持了其他人的研究结果，表明监测城市大鼠可能是一种评估城市环境中人畜共患病病毒活性的有效方法。
