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Updated: Jun 14, 2026
Evaluation of a Universal Nested Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction for the Detection of Lyssaviruses
Published on: May 2, 2019
Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China
Yunzhi Zhang1, Hailin Zhang, Xingqi Dong
1State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome occurred among students in a college (College A) in Kunming, Yunnan province, China in 2003. Subsequent investigations revealed the presence of hantavirus antibodies and antigens in laboratory rats at College A and two other institutions. Hantavirus antibodies were detected in 15 additional individuals other than the index case in these three locations. Epidemiologic data indicated that the human infections were a result of zoonotic transmission of the virus from laboratory rats. A virus was isolated from rats in College A and the full-length genome sequence revealed that this was a new Hantaan virus isolate, designated strain KY. Sequence analysis of the three genome segments indicated that this new isolate is a reassortant derived from human and rat Hantaan viruses. Further sequence analysis of the medium (M) genome segment revealed that it originated from a recombination event between two rat Hantaan virus lineages.
