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Thursday 12 November 2020
Experts call the transmission of diseases from animals to humans zoonoses. The Sars-CoV-2 virus is an example of this. But now, for the first time in Germany, transmission of the virus from Seoul to a person has been detected. The original animal was a domestic rat.
In Germany, transmission of the highly infectious Seoul virus, which is widespread in Asia, has been detected for the first time from an animal to a person. Seoul viruses belong to the hantavirus family. Researchers from the Berlin Charité and the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) on the island of Riems were able to detect the virus in a domestic rat and its owner from Lower Saxony.
According to a communication from Charité and FLI, the virus genes in the patient and the rat were identical. “This confirms a disease through transmission of the pathogen from animals to humans,” said Jörg Hofmann, director of the national advisory laboratory for hantavirus in Charité. “The detection of another zoonotic pathogen in domestic rats once again underscores the need to monitor domestic rats for pathogens,” added Rainer Ulrich from FLI on Riems Island.
Zoonoses are diseases that can come and go between animals and humans. Transmission of the virus from Seoul could have an impact on the management of wild and domestic rats. “Until now, people only thought about hantavirus infections when they came into contact with mice. Now, you have to consider the possibility of an infection also when they come into contact with wild or domestic rats,” Hofmann said. Evidence in a domestic rat also means that the virus can be exported anywhere by selling these animals. Caution should be exercised when keeping rats.
The virus probably reached Europe by ship.
The Seoul virus often leads to serious illness. It does not occur in mice. Transmission of this virus from rats to humans has already been documented in several cases outside of Asia. As reported by the Charité, the young patient from Lower Saxony had to receive intensive medical care for several days with symptoms of acute kidney failure.
The virus likely reached Europe via infected wild rats on ships, but it has never been observed in Germany, Hofmann said. The patient’s infected breeding rat was believed to have been imported into Germany from another country. He bought the animal two or three weeks before he got sick.
After several outbreaks, hantavirus diseases have been notifiable in Germany since 2001. The frequency of infections with these viruses varies between 200 and 3000 per year. That depends on the amount of rain, Hofmann said. If there is a lot of precipitation, the feeding situation of the mice is good and they reproduce vigorously. The virus is transmitted to humans through animal excretions.
