Recently Emerged Novel Henipa-like Viruses: Shining a Spotlight on the Shrew

Abstract

Henipaviruses are zoonotic viruses, including some highly pathogenic and capable of serious disease and high fatality rates in both animals and humans. Hendra virus and Nipah virus are the most notable henipaviruses, resulting in significant outbreaks across South Asia, South-East Asia, and Australia. Pteropid fruit bats have been identified as key zoonotic reservoirs; however, the increased discovery of henipaviruses outside the geographic distribution of Pteropid fruit bats and the detection of novel henipa-like viruses in other species such as the shrew, rat, and opossum suggest that Pteropid bats are not the sole reservoir for henipaviruses. In this review, we provide an update on henipavirus spillover events and describe the recent detection of novel unclassified henipaviruses, with a strong focus on the shrew and its emerging role as a key host of henipaviruses.

Keywords: henipavirus; outbreak potential; paramyxovirus; pteropid bat; reservoir host; shrew; virus; zoonotic.

Figure 1

Phylogenetic analysis of henipavirus attachment glycoprotein sequences (classified and unclassified). GenBank accession numbers are provided in parentheses.

Figure 2

Locations where henipa- and henipa-like viruses were originally detected and the distribution range of two reservoir hosts: the Pteropid fruit bat and crocidurine shrew. The animal host of detection/isolation is shown in the legend. ‘*’ denotes where whole genome was detected in the absence of a viral isolate. ‘+’ denotes that a partial sequence was obtained. Global distribution range for the Pteropid fruit bat taken from [5,41]. Crocidurine shrew distribution range taken from [42].