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. 2021 Jul 15;10(7):899.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens10070899.

A Scoping Review of West Nile Virus Seroprevalence Studies among African Equids

Olaolu T Olufemi  1   2 , Marta Barba  3   4 , Janet M Daly  1
Affiliations

A Scoping Review of West Nile Virus Seroprevalence Studies among African Equids

Olaolu T Olufemi et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging and re-emerging zoonotic flavivirus first identified in and endemic to Africa. The virus is transmitted between birds by biting mosquitoes, with equids and humans being incidental hosts. The majority of infected incidental hosts display no or only mild clinical signs, but a fraction develop encephalitis. The aim of this scoping review was to identify and evaluate primary research on the presence of antibodies to WNV among African equids. Three bibliographic databases and the grey literature were searched. Of 283 articles identified, only 16 satisfied all the inclusion criteria. Data were collated on study design and outcomes. The overall seroprevalence reported ranged from 17.4 to 90.3%, with 1998 (35%) of the 5746 horses, donkeys and mules having screened positive for WNV antibodies. Several articles determined that seroprevalence increased significantly with age. Due to co-circulation of other flaviviruses in Africa, in the majority of studies that screened samples by ELISA, positive results were confirmed using a more specific neutralization test. However, only eight studies tested against other flaviviruses, including Potiskum, Uganda S, Wesselsbron and yellow fever virus in one, Japanese encephalitis and Usutu virus (USUV) in one, tick-borne encephalitis and USUV in one and USUV only in three. Equids are regarded as useful sentinel animals for WNV, but variation in study design poses challenges when trying to determine risk factors for, and trends in, WNV seroprevalence.

Keywords: Africa; West Nile virus; antibodies; donkeys; flavivirus; horses; mules; seroprevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram of literature search and screening articles. (Created with BioRender.com, accessed on 10 July 2021).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Map of Africa showing seroprevalence reported in different countries (* indicates study where samples were screened from multiple countries [31]). Created with MapChart.net (accessed on 26 May 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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