Expanded host diversity and geographic distribution of hantaviruses in sub-Saharan Africa.

Kang HJ, Stanley WT, Esselstyn JA, Gu SH, Yanagihara R.

Citation

Kang HJ, Stanley WT, Esselstyn JA, Gu SH, Yanagihara R. (2014) Expanded host diversity and geographic distribution of hantaviruses in sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Virology 88(13):7663-7667.

Abstract

Recent discovery of hantaviruses in shrews and bats in West Africa suggests that other genetically distinct hantaviruses exist in East Africa. Genetic and phylogenetic analyses of newfound hantaviruses, detected in archival tissues from the Geata mouse shrew (Myosorex geata) and Kilimanjaro mouse shrew (Myosorex zinki) captured in Tanzania, expands the host diversity and geographic distribution of hantaviruses and suggests that ancestral shrews and/or bats may have served as the original mammalian hosts of primordial hantaviruses.