Novel Paramyxovirus Associated with Severe Acute Febrile Disease, South Sudan and Uganda, 2012

Abstract

In 2012, a female wildlife biologist experienced fever, malaise, headache, generalized myalgia and arthralgia, neck stiffness, and a sore throat shortly after returning to the United States from a 6-week field expedition to South Sudan and Uganda. She was hospitalized, after which a maculopapular rash developed and became confluent. When the patient was discharged from the hospital on day 14, arthralgia and myalgia had improved, oropharynx ulcerations had healed, the rash had resolved without desquamation, and blood counts and hepatic enzyme levels were returning to reference levels. After several known suspect pathogens were ruled out as the cause of her illness, deep sequencing and metagenomics analysis revealed a novel paramyxovirus related to rubula-like viruses isolated from fruit bats.

Highly Diverse Morbillivirus-Related Paramyxoviruses in Wild Fauna of the Southwestern Indian Ocean Islands: Evidence of Exchange between Introduced and Endemic Small Mammals

“…Of these, henipaviruses (Paramyxovirinae) have emerged as human pathogens from fruit bat populations since 1994 in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Australia (10,11). Additionally, a novel rubulavirus-related virus, similar to those known to be hosted by fruit bats, has been described with the capacity to cause illness in humans (12), showing how as-yet unknown Paramyxoviridae in wild animal reservoirs may pose an important health risk.…”

Taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales: update 2017

“…In addition, the genus Avulavirus was expanded by one novel species, Avian avulavirus 13 , for avian paramyxovirus 13 discovered in geese [19, 24, 47] (TaxoProp 2016.001a,bM.A.v2.Avulavirus_spren). The genus Rubulavirus was expanded by 10 species to accommodate two long known viruses (e.g., Menangle virus, Tioman virus) and eight newly discovered bat viruses (bat mumps virus, Achimota viruses 1 and 2, Sosuga virus, Teviot virus, Tuhoko viruses 1–3) [3, 5, 11, 12, 16, 26] (TaxoProp 2015.016aM.A.v3.Rubulavirus_10sp). Finally, the previous species name Newcastle disease virus was changed to Avian avulavirus 1 to reflect the fact that “Newcastle disease virus” is but one strain of the member virus of this species, avian paramyxovirus 1 (APMV-1) [46] (TaxoProp 2016.001a,bM.A.v2.Avulavirus_spren).…”

A Recently Discovered Pathogenic Paramyxovirus, Sosuga Virus, is Present in Rousettus aegyptiacus Fruit Bats at Multiple Locations in Uganda

“…In late August 2012, a wildlife biologist returned to the US from Africa infected with a novel paramyxovirus, provisionally named Sosuga virus (Albariño et al 2014). Initially, the biologist worked for 3 wk in remote areas of South Sudan collecting bats and rodents, but later, the individual traveled to Kibaale, Uganda, for a second 3-wk period collecting only bats (Fig.…”

“…Initial diagnostic tests for known African viral hemorrhagic fevers were negative, including those caused by Ebola viruses, Marburg viruses, Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, and Lassa virus. Using deep sequencing and metagenomic analysis, the etiologic agent was found to be a novel paramyxovirus most closely related to rubula-like viruses found in several species of Asian and African fruit bats (Leschenault’s rousette, Rousettus leschesnaulti ; variable flying fox, Pteropus hypomelanus ; and the straw-colored fruit bat, Eidolon helvum ; Chua et al 2002; Lau et al 2010; Drexler et al 2012; Baker et al 2013; Albariño et al 2014). …”

“…Testing for Sosuga virus in bat specimens was carried out using a highly sensitive quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) assay targeting the NP gene, which had been initially developed for detection and quantitation of Sosuga virus in patient blood (Albariño et al 2014). Briefly, total nucleic acid from pooled bat liver/spleen tissue was extracted as described by Amman et al (2012).…”