Journal
VIRUSES-BASEL
Volume 13, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/v13061142
Keywords
severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome; cats; veterinarians
Categories
Funding
- JSPS KAKENHI Grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [JP17H04661]
- Health and Labor Sciences Research Grant on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases from the Japanese Ministry of Health
- Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) [20fk0108081h1002]
- Labour and Welfare, Research on International Cooperation in Medical Science (Japan-US Cooperative Program)
- Health and Labor Sciences Research Grants
- NEKKEN [2020-Ippan-09]
- Japan Initiative for Global Research Network on Infectious Diseases
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The study revealed that 33.1% of cats in Nagasaki were infected with SFTSV, with the main genotype being J1 and unique reassortant strains with J2 and unclassified genotypes present. SFTSV RNA was detected in the body fluids of cats, and some veterinary staff members showed seropositivity for SFTSV-specific antibodies.
In this study, we investigated severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus (SFTSV) infection in cats in Nagasaki, Japan. In total, 44 of 133 (33.1%) cats with suspected SFTS were confirmed to be infected with SFTSV. Phylogenetic analyses of SFTSV isolates from cats indicated that the main genotype in Nagasaki was J1 and that unique reassortant strains with J2 (S segment) and unclassified genotypes (M and L segments) were also present. There were no significant differences in virus growth in cell cultures or fatality in SFTSV-infected mice between the SFTSV strains that were isolated from recovered and fatal cat cases. Remarkably, SFTSV RNAs were detected in the swabs from cats, indicating that the body fluids contain SFTSV. To evaluate the risk of SFTSV infection when providing animal care, we further examined the seroprevalence of SFTSV infection in veterinarian staff members; 3 of 71 (4.2%) were seropositive for SFTSV-specific antibodies. Our results provide useful information on the possibility of using cats as sentinel animals and raised concerns of the zoonotic risk of catching SFTSV from animals.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available