A retrospective study of hantavirus infection in Kinmen, Taiwan

In this retrospective study, 140 serum samples collected from 85 scrub typhus-negative patients in Kinmen Island in 2000 were tested for antibodies to hantavirus using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Seven patients (8.23%) were confirmed as having hantavirus infection as demonstrated by increased hantavirus-specific immunoglobulin M and/or immunoglobulin G antibodies in their convalescent serum samples. Analysis of indirect immunofluorescence assay showed that Seoul type was the etiologic agent. Serosurvey of rodents caught in the resident township of these hantavirus-infected human cases showed that the seroprevalence of antibodies to hantavirus among Rattus norvegicus, Mus musculus, and R. flavipectus was 50% (4/8), 20% (1/5), and 2% (7/348), respectively. Molecular analysis showed that these reservoir hosts carried a Seoul type hantavirus. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating indigenous hantavirus cases in Kinmen.