A recentstudy suggested that Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1), which is carried by wild shrews in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, could be a more common cause of severe or fatal encephalitis among people in endemic areas than previously realized.

Although BoDV-1 is known to cause fatal neurologic disease in horses and sheep, recent case reports of severe or fatal encephalitis in people with BoDV-1 infection raised concerns that the virus is a threat to humans. In the latest study, researchers tested for BoDV-1 RNA and antibodies to the virus in brain tissue samples from 56 patients who died of suspected viral encephalitis between 1999 and 2019. The researchers identified another 6 human BoDV-1 cases and other laboratories identified 2 more. Viral RNA sequencing found that each person had a unique strain, suggesting that they were infected independently of each other, likely from a local wild animal reservoir.

“Our findings indicate that Borna disease virus infection has to be considered a severe and potentially lethal human disease transmitted from a wildlife reservoir,” senior author Barbara Schmidt, MD, professor at the Institute of Clinical Microbiology and Hygiene at Regensburg University Hospital, said in a press release. “It’s not a newly emerging disease, but one that appears to have occurred unnoticed in humans for at least decades and may have caused other unexplained cases of encephalitis in regions where the virus is endemic in the host shrew populations.”

最近的一项研究表明，在德国，奥地利，瑞士和列支敦士登的野生sh携带的博尔纳病病毒1（BoDV-1）可能是流行地区人们严重或致命脑炎的更常见原因。

尽管已知BoDV-1会在马和绵羊中引起致命的神经系统疾病，但最近BoDV-1感染者中严重或致命性脑炎的病例报告引起了人们对该病毒对人类的威胁的担忧。在最新研究中，研究人员测试了1999年至2019年间56例死于疑似病毒性脑炎的患者脑组织样本中的BoDV-1 RNA和抗病毒抗体。研究人员确定了另外6例人类BoDV-1病例，其他实验室确定了2例更多。病毒RNA测序发现每个人都有独特的病毒株，表明他们彼此独立感染，很可能来自当地的野生动物库。

雷根斯堡大学医院临床微生物学和卫生学教授，医学博士，高级作者芭芭拉·施密特（Barbara Schmidt）博士说：“我们的研究结果表明，必须将博尔纳病病毒感染视为从野生生物水库传播的严重且可能致命的人类疾病。”新闻稿。“这不是一种新出现的疾病，但似乎在人类中至少有几十年没有被人发现，并且可能在宿主人群中该病毒流行的地区引起了其他无法解释的脑炎病例。”