Seoul Virus Infection in Humans, France, 2014-2016

Abstract

We report detection of Seoul virus in 3 patients in France over a 2-year period. These patients accounted for 3 of the 4 Seoul virus infections among 434 hantavirus infections (1.7%) reported during this time. More attention should be given to this virus in Europe where surveillance has been focused mostly on Puumala and Dobrava-Belgrade hantaviruses.

Keywords: France; Rattus norvegicus; Seoul virus; brown rats; hantavirus; humans; infection; viruses; zoonoses.

Figure 1

Geographic distribution of Seoul virus (SEOV) infections among human and rats, France 2016. Gray shading area indicates area of France to which Puumala virus is endemic. Open green circles indicate SEOV serologically confirmed human infections with SEOV reported by Ragnaud et al. (10), Le Guenno (11), and Bour et al. (6); solid blue circles indicate virologically confirmed human infections with SEOV reported in this study (patients 1, 2, and 3); solid yellow square indicates virologically confirmed human infection with SEOV reported by Macé al. (5); solid red diamonds indicate virologically confirmed SEOV infections in brown rats reported in this study; and open blue diamonds indicate virologically confirmed SEOV infections in brown rats reported by Heyman et al. (12) and Dupinay et al. (13).

Figure 2

Phylogenetic tree based on the complete small RNA nucleotide coding sequences of Seoul virus (SEOV) strains isolated from 3 patients and rodents in contact with the patients infected with SEOV, France 2014–2016, and representative strains of SEOV and other hantavirus species. Triangles indicate sequences of strains detected in wild brown rats (this study) associated with a serologically confirmed human infection reported by Bour A et al. (6); squares indicate sequences of strains detected in case-patient 2 and in his pet brown rat; and circles indicate sequences of strains detected in case-patient 3 and 1 of his farmed brown rats. Bootstrap percentages >70% (from 500 resamplings) are indicated at each node; GenBank accession numbers are indicated for reference strains.Scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site.