THE PROTECTIVE IMMUNE RESPONSE TO WEST NILE VIRUS IN HORSES

摘要

West Nile Virus (WNV) is a member of the Flaviviridae family of nearly 70 positive-sense, single-stranded enveloped RNA viruses. This family of viruses is distinguished with several mosquito-borne pathogens that cause endemic or epidemic disease worldwide including, Yellow Fever Virus, Dengue Virus, Japanese Encephalitis Virus, and Murray Valley Encephalitis Virus. Historically WNV was isolated in 1937 from a febrile woman in the West Nile region of Uganda and was the cause of periodic outbreaks of fever and encephalitis in horses and people in Africa and the Middle East. West Nile emerged in the United States in the fall of 1999, in New York City, with the first fatalities being avian inhabitants at the Bronx Zoo and resulting in the deaths of nineDorses, seven people, and hundreds of local birds (corvids) in the initial outbreak. Investigation confirmed the encroachment of a virulent strain of West Nile Virus, closely related to a neurotropic Lineage I strain of WNV isolated from Israel.