Pet rat harbouring Seoul hantavirus in Sweden, June 2013

Å Lundkvist; J Verner-Carlsson; A Plyusnina; L Forslund; R Feinstein; A Plyusnin

doi:10.2807/1560-7917.ES2013.18.27.20521

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Pet rat harbouring Seoul hantavirus in Sweden, June 2013
Å Lundkvist^1,2,3 , J Verner-Carlsson^1,2 , A Plyusnina⁴ , L Forslund⁵ , R Feinstein⁵ , A Plyusnin⁴
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Affiliations: ¹ Swedish Institute for Communicable Diseases, Solna, Sweden ² Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden ³ BMC, IMBIM, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden ⁴ Haartman Institute, Helsinki, Finland ⁵ The National Veterinary Institute, Uppsala, Sweden

Correspondence:
Å Lundkvist
ake.lundkvist smi.se
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Citation style for this article: Lundkvist Å, Verner-Carlsson J, Plyusnina A, Forslund L, Feinstein R, Plyusnin A. Pet rat harbouring Seoul hantavirus in Sweden, June 2013. Euro Surveill. 2013;18(27):pii=20521. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2013.18.27.20521 Received: 25 Jun 2013

Abstract

We report the first detection of Seoul hantavirus (SEOV) in a pet rat in Sweden. SEOV-specific antibodies were detected in the pet rat blood by focus reduction neutralising test (FRNT), and SEOV RNA in lung tissue was confirmed by reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) followed by sequencing. The discovery follows the recent reports of SEOV infected pet rats, as well as associated human cases of severe haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), in England and Wales.