Sexual and transovarian transmission of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus in Hyalomma truncatum ticks

Abstract

Male Hyalomma truncatum ticks were inoculated with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus, hypostomectomized and then allowed to mate with uninfected females feeding on a naive rabbit. After mating, CCHF virus was reisolated from 2 out of 3 males tested and from 4 of 6 mated, engorged females (titre greater than or equal to 2.2 log LD50/ml). Vertical transmission was then demonstrated by virus reisolation from a portion of 2 of the 6 batches of eggs laid by the positive females. From these 2 positive egg batches, 6 larvae pools were tested with successful virus reisolation from one. Attempts to reisolate CCHF virus from 15 nymph pools of this positive batch of larvae were unsuccessful. Virus reisolation from gonopore-closed female H. truncatum which cofed with preinfected males demonstrated transmission in the absence of copulation. Rabbits that served as bloodmeal sources seroconverted after infestation by infected male ticks. However, CCHF virus was not reisolated from 3 gonopore-closed, engorged females, nor from their eggs, after feeding with hypostomectomized preinfected males. Transmission of CCHF virus during mating or cofeeding of adult H. truncatum, and subsequent transovarial transmission, appear to represent additional mechanisms of infection in the tick population, and may contribute to the maintenance of transmission in nature.