Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jan 27;15(2):366.
doi: 10.3390/v15020366.

Co-Circulation of West Nile, Usutu, and Tick-Borne Encephalitis Viruses in the Same Area: A Great Challenge for Diagnostic and Blood and Organ Safety

Viktória Čabanová  1 , Jana Kerlik  2 , Peter Kirschner  3 , Jana Rosochová  4 , Boris Klempa  1   5 , Monika Sláviková  1 , Martina Ličková  1
Affiliations

Co-Circulation of West Nile, Usutu, and Tick-Borne Encephalitis Viruses in the Same Area: A Great Challenge for Diagnostic and Blood and Organ Safety

Viktória Čabanová et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Viral infections caused by viruses from the family Flaviviridae such as Zika (ZIKV), Dengue (DENV), yellow fever (YFV), tick-borne encephalitis (TBEV), West Nile (WNV), and Usutu (USUV) are some of the most challenging diseases for recognition in clinical diagnostics and epidemiological tracking thanks to their short viremia, non-specific symptoms, and high cross-reactivity observed in laboratory techniques. In Central Europe, the most relevant endemic flaviviruses are mosquito-borne WNV and USUV, and tick-borne TBEV. All three viruses have been recognised to be responsible for human neuroinvasive diseases. Moreover, they are interrupting the blood and transplantation safety processes, when the great efforts made to save a patient's life could be defeated by acquired infection from donors. Due to the trend of changing distribution and abundance of flaviviruses and their vectors influenced by global change, the co-circulation of WNV, USUV, and TBEV can be observed in the same area. In this perspective, we discuss the problems of flavivirus diagnostics and epidemiology monitoring in Slovakia as a model area of Central Europe, where co-circulation of WNV, USUV, and TBEV in the same zone has been recently detected. This new situation presents multiple challenges not only for diagnostics or surveillance but particularly also for blood and organ safety. We conclude that the current routinely used laboratory diagnostics and donor screening applied by the European Union (EU) regulations are out of date and the novel methods which have become available in recent years, e.g., next-gene sequencing or urine screening should be implemented immediately.

Keywords: co-circulation; emergence; flavivirus; mosquito; neuroinvasive diseases; tick.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The area of co-circulation of West Nile (WNV), Usutu (USUV), and tick-borne encephalitis (TBEV) viruses in Slovakia, Central Europe. Legend: mosquito icon—WNV, USUV focus, tick icon—TBEV focus, hospital icon—the catchment hospital, orange dot—placement of the area in Slovakia, AT—Austria, CZ—Czechia, HU—Hungary, PL—Poland, SK—Slovakia, UA—Ukraine.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The total number of reported human cases of TBEV in Slovakia. Legend: the X axis represents years, the Y axis the number of cases. The red line represents a linear trendline.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Zannoli S., Sambri V. West Nile Virus and Usutu Virus Co-Circulation in Europe: Epidemiology and Implications. Microorganisms. 2019;7:184. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms7070184. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wondim M.A., Czupryna P., Pancewicz S., Kruszewska E., Groth M., Moniuszko-Malinowska A. Epidemiological Trends of Trans-Boundary Tick-Borne Encephalitis in Europe, 2000–2019. Pathogens. 2022;11:704. doi: 10.3390/pathogens11060704. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cunze S., Glock G., Kochmann J., Klimpel S. Ticks on the move—Climate change-induced range shifts of three tick species in Europe: Current and future habitat suitability for Ixodes ricinus in comparison with Dermacentor reticulatus and Dermacentor marginatus. Parasitol. Res. 2021;121:2241–2252. doi: 10.1007/s00436-022-07556-x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bødker R., Klitgård K., Byriel D.B., Kristensen B. Establishment of the West Nile virus vector, Culex modestus, in a residential area in Denmark. J. Vector Ecol. 2014;39:1–3. doi: 10.1111/jvec.12121. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lindström A., Lilja T. First finding of the West Nile virus vector Culex modestus Ficalbi 1889 (Diptera; Culicidae) in Sweden. J. Eur. Mosq. Control Assoc. 2018;36:1–2.

Publication types