Isolation of a virus strain from Argas persicus ticks.

A previously undescribed virus was isolated from Argas persicus ticks collected on sentinel chicken in western Slovakia. The strain was lethal for suckling mice only after intracerebral inoculation. No symptoms were induced in adult mice. The virus strain was insensitive to sodium deoxycholate and resistant to ether treatment. An antigen prepared from the virus did not agglutinate goose or human O erythrocytes. The single strain obtained in 1976 appeared to be untrelated to a large number of known arboviruses when tested by the complement-fixation reaction.