Insights into the recent emergence and expansion of eastern equine encephalitis virus in a new focus in the Northern New England USA.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus (EEEV) causes a highly pathogenic zoonosis that circulates in an enzootic cycle involving the ornithophagic mosquito, Culiseta melanura, and wild passerine birds in freshwater hardwood swamps in the northeastern U.S. Epidemic/epizootic transmission to humans/equines typically occurs towards the end of the transmission season and is generally assumed to be mediated by locally abundant and contiguous mammalophagic "bridge vector" mosquitoes.

Methods

Engorged mosquitoes were collected using CDC light, resting box, and gravid traps during epidemic transmission of EEEV in 2012 in Addison and Rutland counties, Vermont. Mosquitoes were identified to species and blood meal analysis performed by sequencing mitochondrial cytochrome b g

SUBMITTER: Molaei G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4600208 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature