The Fifth International Conference on Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, and Hantaviruses

摘要

The Fifth International Conferenceon Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syn-drome, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syn-drome, and Hantaviruses was held June13-16, 2001, in Annecy, a scenic resortin the French Alps. The conference, with160 participants, was co-organized andgenerously hosted by the Mérieux Foun-dation.Apart from Eurasia and the Ameri-cas, evidence for infections with hantavi-ruses now has been reported from manynew areas, including the Southeast Asiancountries of Cambodia, Indonesia, Tai-wan, and Thailand. However, definitiveand consistent evidence for the presenceof these viruses still has not beenreported from Africa or Australia. Theoccurrence of some newly recognizedpathogenic Old World hantaviruses wasreported (Amur virus from Apodemuspeninsulae in the Far East and Saaremaavirus from A. agrarius in Europe). Forthe Old World, the proper taxonomy ofthese viruses seems to be reasonablywell established. This is not the case forSouth American hantaviruses, presum-ably because rodents and their hantavi-ruses only recently entered the area,perhaps after the opening of the "PanamaBridge," as summarized by S. Morzunov(Reno, NV). The clinical pictures ofSouth American hantavirus infections(D. Enria, Pergamino, Argentina) seemto be variable, intermediate betweensevere North American hantavirus pul-monary syndrome (HPS) and Eurasianhemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome(HFRS), and include mild cases, hemor-rhagic cases, and those characterized byrenal and neurologic signs.Additionalevidence was presented for the occur-rence of clustered cases, further suggest-ing the possibility of person-to-persontransmission, in southern Argentina,Chile, and Brazil. Much additional workis required to prove such a hypothesis.Transmission of hantaviruses in car-rier rodents is complex and may beattributable to decreased biodiversity ofrodent reservoir communities (J. Mills,Atlanta, GA). Although it is well knownthat wounds and infections are corre-lated, deer mice in laboratory coloniesshed very little Sin Nombre virus_(SNV). According to S. Klein (Balti-more, MD), intact male rats shed moreSeoul virus than do females or castratedmales. As reported by B. Hjelle (Albu-querque, NM), heat shock in cell cul-tures and cold shock in vivo canreactivate SNV, which persists in heart,lung, and, interestingly, brown fat