Screening for Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1) in Austria: Absence of human cases in a retrospective case-finding study

Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1) is a zoonotic virus with a recently confirmed potential to cause rare but severe cases of encephalitis in humans. While the bicolored white-toothed shrew (Crocidura leucodon), which represents the reservoir, is widely distributed over eastern, central, and southern Europe as well as south-west Asia, human infections have so far only been reported from Germany. As infections in sentinels such as horses indicate the endemic circulation of the virus also in circumscribed regions of neighboring countries (Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland), we initiated a retrospective case-finding study to investigate whether there were so far undetected human infections in Austria.

For this purpose, biobank samples from the Center for Virology in Vienna were selected based on available clinical characteristics consistent with possible neurological symptoms of human BoDV-1 infections to be screened for BoDV-1 RNA (859 cerebrospinal fluid samples) and anti-BoDV-1 IgG antibodies (366 corresponding serum samples).

BoDV-1 RNA or confirmed anti-BoDV-1 IgG antibodies were not detected in any of the cerebrospinal fluid or serum samples, respectively.

Our result demonstrates that if human BoDV-1 infections occur in Austria, they must be very rare even in patients with neurological symptoms. Further research using samples with a more distinct geographical link to the circumscribed endemic rural region in Upper Austria, however, will be necessary to complement the preliminary finding of this study.