Antibodies to henipavirus or henipa-like viruses in domestic pigs in Ghana, West Africa

Henipaviruses, Hendra virus (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV), have Pteropid bats as their known natural reservoirs. Antibodies against henipaviruses have been found in Eidolon helvum, an old world fruit bat species, and henipavirus-like nucleic acid has been detected in faecal samples from E. helvum in G...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-09, Vol.6 (9), p.e25256-e25256
Main Authors: Hayman, David T S, Wang, Lin-Fa, Barr, Jennifer, Baker, Kate S, Suu-Ire, Richard, Broder, Christopher C, Cunningham, Andrew A, Wood, James L N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acids
Animal populations
Animals
Antibodies
Antibodies, Viral - immunology
Bats
Biology
Chiroptera
Consortia
E coli
Eidolon helvum
Encephalitis
Epidemics
Escherichia coli
Ghana
Goats
Henipavirus
Henipavirus - immunology
Hogs
Horses
Immunoglobulins
Infections
Infectious diseases
Laboratories
Medicine
Megachiroptera
Neutralizing
Nipah virus
Nipah Virus - immunology
Nucleic acids
Outbreaks
Proteins
Sheep
Sus scrofa
Veterinary Science
Viruses
Zoology
Zoonoses
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Summary:Henipaviruses, Hendra virus (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV), have Pteropid bats as their known natural reservoirs. Antibodies against henipaviruses have been found in Eidolon helvum, an old world fruit bat species, and henipavirus-like nucleic acid has been detected in faecal samples from E. helvum in Ghana. The initial outbreak of NiV in Malaysia led to over 265 human encephalitis cases, including 105 deaths, with infected pigs acting as amplifier hosts for NiV during the outbreak. We detected non-neutralizing antibodies against viruses of the genus Henipavirus in approximately 5% of pig sera (N = 97) tested in Ghana, but not in a small sample of other domestic species sampled under a E. helvum roost. Although we did not detect neutralizing antibody, our results suggest prior exposure of the Ghana pig population to henipavirus(es). Because a wide diversity of henipavirus-like nucleic acid sequences have been found in Ghanaian E. helvum, we hypothesise that these pigs might have been infected by henipavirus(es) sufficiently divergent enough from HeVor NiV to produce cross-reactive, but not cross-neutralizing antibodies to HeV or NiV.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0025256