Investigation of a Potential Zoonotic Transmission of Orthoreovirus Associated with Acute Influenza-Like Illness in an Adult Patient

Abstract

Bats are increasingly being recognized as important reservoir hosts for a large number of viruses, some of them can be highly virulent when they infect human and livestock animals. Among the new bat zoonotic viruses discovered in recent years, several reoviruses (respiratory enteric orphan viruses) were found to be able to cause acute respiratory infections in humans, which included Melaka and Kampar viruses discovered in Malaysia, all of them belong to the genus Orthoreovirus, family Reoviridae. In this report, we describe the isolation of a highly related virus from an adult patient who suffered acute respiratory illness in Malaysia. Although there was no direct evidence of bat origin, epidemiological study indicated the potential exposure of the patient to bats before the onset of disease. The current study further demonstrates that spillover events of different strains of related orthoreoviruses from bats to humans are occurring on a regular basis, which calls for more intensive and systematic surveillances to fully assess the true public health impact of these newly discovered bat-borne zoonotic reoviruses.

Pteropine orthoreovirus: An important emerging virus causing infectious disease in the tropics?

“…The bat samples includes heart blood, urine, lung specimens, intestinal specimens, and salivary swabs. In the seven isolates recovered from human samples, three cases were known to have been exposed to fruit bats, while the other four cases made no specific mention of exposure to bats, though there was history of visits to places with the potential presence of fruit bats [4][5][6][7][8][9]. With this backdrop, it appears highly likely that fruit bats (Pteropus spp.…”

“…These findings highly support human-to-human transmission of PRV. The mode of human-to-human transmission is yet to be determined [7].…”

“…In patients infected by MRV, the illness that it caused has been described as mild and self-limiting [3]. Of all the cases of documented PRV infection in humans, the majority of them suffered from acute respiratory disease or influenza-like illness [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Similarly, in patients affected by PRV, the illness was self-limiting, as all documented patients eventually made an uneventful, full recovery [4,5,[7][8][9].…”

“…The severe illness included high fever, followed by cough or sore throat, with some systemic symptoms such as generalized weakness and myalgia [4][5][6][7][8][9]. It is important to note that the sore throat described was severe in nature and the fever was high [4,5,7].…”

“…One patient was noted to have abdominal pain over the epigastrium without vomiting or diarrhea [7]. PRV has been found inside the intestinal contents of fruit bats [11].…”