Department of Land Resources & Environmental Sciences
 Montana State University
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 ©2006 RKD Peterson

West Nile Virus

General Information



Introduction

      Initially isolated in 1937 in Uganda (Smithburn et al. 1940), West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA virus of the family Flaviridae (Campbell et al. 2002, Petersen and Marfin 2002), which belongs to the Japanese encephalitis serocomplex, which includes other viruses such as the Japanese encephalitis, Murray Valley encephalitis, and St. louis encephalitis viruses (Petersen and Marfin 2002, Depoortere et al. 2004). There are two lineages of West Nile strains (Jia et al. 1999, Lanciotti et al. 1999, Scherret et al. 2001): viruses from lineage 1 were associated with main recent human encephalitis epidemics and have been isolated from Africa, India, Europe, and North America (Petersen and Roehrig 2001, McLean et al. 2002); viruses from lineage 2 have been identified only in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar (Lanciotti et al. 2002, McLean et al. 2002). The WNV responsible for the outbreak in the United States in 1999 was identified as a lineage 1 virus that circulated in Israel from 1997 to 2000 (Lanciotti et al. 1999, Giladi et al. 2001), and phylogenetic analysis of complete genomes confirmed the close relationship between American strains and certain Israeli strains (Charrel et al. 2003), which suggests that the virus was imported into North America from the Middle East (Jia et al. 1999, Petersen and Roehrig 2001). Very few genetic changes were observed in the variant of WNV circulating in the United States since its introduction in 1999 (Petersen and Marfin 2002). However, disease severity and frequency appears to have been changing since the mid-1990s (Petersen and Roehrig 2001), although it is not clear whether the observed changes are due to differences in the circulating virus's virulence or to changes in age structure, background immunity, or predisposing conditions in the affected populations (Hubalek 2001, Petersen and Roehrig 2001).  Thirty-one percent of patients diagnosis with WNV had a new on-set of depression (Murray et al. 2007).  A patient with WNV was diagnosis with non-convulsive status epilepticus (NCSE) which is the first documented case of NCSE in a WNV patient (Bagic et al. 2007).
      WNV is maintained in an enzootic transmission cycle where wild and domestic birds are the main amplifying hosts and ornithophilic mosquitoes are the main vectors. Since its introduction into North America in 1999, WNV has been detected in ate least 43 mosquito species (CDC 2003). However, not all of those are competent vectors of WNV (Turell et al. 2005). Species in the Culex pipiens complex may serve as bridge vectors of WNV from birds to humans (Spielman 2001). Kilpatrick et al. (2005) suggest that the most important mosquito species for transmission of WNV to humans in the northeastern and north-central United States are Cx. pipiens and Cx. restuans. These species breed primarily in tires, gutters, catch basins, and polluted surface pools (Pratt and Moore 1993), where mosquito control efforts should then be focused, reducing the detrimental effects on nontarget species, and improving the effectiveness of control measures (Kilpatrick et al. 2005). In the southeastern United States, the major vectors of WNV among birds are Cx. quinquefasciatus and Cx. nigripalpus (Sardelis et al. 2001, Rutledge et al. 2003), while Cx. tarsalis and Cx. quinquefasciatus are primary vectors among birds in the western United States (Goddard et al. 2002). Species in the Cx. pipiens complex can transmit the virus transovarially (Dohm et al. 2002), so overwintering mosquitoes can initiate another infection cycle the next spring (Nasci et al. 2001).

Epidemiology

Symptoms

Risk Factors

Morbidity
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References

Bagic, A., E.A. Boudreau, J. Greenfield, and S. Sato. 2007. Electro-clinical evolution of refractory non-convulsive status epilepticus caused by West Nile virus encephalitis. Epileptic Disorders 9: 98-103.

Campbell, G.L., A.A. Marfin, R.S. Lanciotti, and D.J. Gubler. 2002. West Nile virus. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2: 519-529.

CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2003. Acessed at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/mosquitoSpecies.htm on 14 March 2004.

Charrel, R.N., A.C. Brault, P. Gallian, J.J. Lemasson, B. Murgue, S. Murri, B. Pastorino, H. Zeller, R. de Chesse, P. de Micco, and X. de Lamballerie, 2003. Evolutionary relationship between Old World West Nile virus strains. Evidence for viral gene flow between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Virology. 315(2): 381-388.

Depoortere, E., J. Kavle, K. Keus, H. Zeller, S. Murri, and D. Legros. 2004. Outbreak of West Nile virus causing severe neurological involvement in children, Nuba Mountains, Sudan, 2002. TM & IH. 9(6): 730-736.

Dohm, D.J., M.R. Sardelis, and M.J. Turell. 2002. Experimental vertical transmission of West Nile virus by Culex pipiens (Diptera: Culicidae). J. Med. Entomol. 39(4): 640-644.

Giladi, M., E. Metzkor-Cotter, D.A. Martin, Y. Siegman-Igra, A.M. Korezyn, R. Rosso, S.A. Berger, G.L. Campbell, and R.S. Lanciotti. 2001. West Nile Encephalitis in Israel, 1999: the New York connection. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 7(4): 659-661.

Goddard, L.B., AE. Roth, W.K. Reisen, and T.W. Scott. 2002. Vector competence of California mosquitoes for West Nile virus. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 8(12): 1385-1391.

Hubalek, Z. 2001. Comparative symptomatology of West Nile fever. Lancet Infect. Dis. 358: 254-255.

Jia, X.Y., T. Briese, I. Jordan, A. Rambaut, H.C. Chi, J.S. Mackenzie, R.A. Hall, J. Scherret, and W.I. Lipkin. 1999. Genetic analysis of West Nile New York 1999 encephalitis virus. The Lancet. 354(9194): 1971-1972.

Kilpatrick, A.M., L.D. Kramer, S.R. Campbell, E.O. Alleyne, A.P. Dobson, and P. Daszak. 2005. West Nile virus risk assessment and the bridge vector paradigm. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 11(3): 425-429.

Lanciotti, R.S., J.T. Roehrig, V. Deubel, J. Smith, M. Parker, K. Steele, B. Crise, K.E. Volpe, M.B. Crabtree, J.H. Scherret, R.A. Hall, J.S. MacKenzie, C.B. Cropp, B. Panigrahy, E. Ostlund, B. Schmitt, M. Malkinson, C. Banet, J. Weissman, N. Komar, H.M. Savage, W. Stone, T. McNamara, and D.J. Gubler. 1999. Origin of the West Nile virus responsible for an outbreak of encephalitis in the northeastern United States. Science. 286(5448): 2333-2337.

Lanciotti, R.S., G.D. Ebel, V. Deubel, A.J. Kerst, S. Murri, R. Meyer, M. Bowen, N. McKinney, W.E. Morrill, M.B. Crabtree, L.D. Kramer, and J.T. Roehrig. 2002. Complete genome sequences and phylogenetic analysis of West Nile virus strains isolated from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Virology. 298: 96-105

McLean, R.G., S.R. Ubico, D. Bourne, and N. Komar. 2002. West Nile virus in livestock and wildlife. Curr. Top. Microbiol. and Immunol. 267: 271-308.

Murray, K.O., M. Resnick, and V. Miller. 2007. Depression after infection with West Nile virus. Emerging Infectious Diseases 13: 479-481.

Nasci, R.S., H.M. Savage, D.J. White, JR. Miller, B.C. Cropp, M.S. Godsey, A.J. Kerst, P. Bennett, K. Gottfried, and R.S. Lanciotti. 2001. West Nile virus in overwintering Culex mosquitoes, New York City, 2000. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 7(4): 742-744.

Petersen, L.R. and A.A. Marfin. 2002. West Nile virus: a primer for the clinician. Ann. Inter. Med. 137: 173-179.

Petersen, L.R. and J.T. Roehrig. 2001. West Nile Virus: A Reemerging Global Pathogen. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 7(4): 611-614.

Pratt, H.D. and C.G. Moore. 1993. Mosquitoes of public health importance and their control. Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rutledge, C.R., J.F. Day, C.C. Lord, L.M. Stark, and W.J. Tabachnick. 2003. West Nile virus infection rates in Culex nigripalpus (Diptera: Culicidae) do not reflect transmission rates in Florida. J. Med. Entomol. 40(3): 253-258.

Sardelis, M.R., M.J. Turell, D.J. Dohm, and M.L. O'Guinn. 2001. Vector competence of selected North American Culex and Coquillettidia mosquitoes for West Nile virus. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 7(6): 1018-1021.

Scherret, J.H., M. Poidinger, J.S. Mackenzie, A.K. Broom, V. Deubel, W.I. Lipkin, T. Briese, E.A. Gould, and R.A. Hall. 2001. The relationships between West Nile and Kunjin viruses. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 7(4): 697-705.

Smithburn, K.C., T.P. Hughes, A.W. Burke, and J.H. Paul. 1940. A neurotropic virus isolated from the blood of a native of Uganda. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 20: 471-492.

Spielman, A. 2001 Structure and seasonality of nearctic Culex pipiens populations. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 951: 220-234.Tsai, T.F., F. Popovici, C. Cernescu, G.L. Campbell, and N.I. Nedelcu. 1998. West Nile encephalitis epidemic in southeastern Romania. Lancet Infect. Dis.352: 1-5.

Turell, M.J., D.J. Dohm, M.R. Sardelis, M.L. O’Guinn, T.J. Andreadis, and J.A. Blow. 2005. An update on the potential of North American mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) to transmit West Nile virus. J. Med. Entomol. 42(1): 57-62.
 
 
 
 
 
 

   
 Although we provide general information on West Nile Virus (WNV), this web site is designed primarily to provide information on human-health and ecological risk assessments of WNV and tactics used for mosquito management.