Studies of possible movement of Venezuelan encephalitis virus from an enzootic focus in Guatemala during 1971-1974
Ordonez, J.V.; Scherer, W.F.; Dickerman, R.W.
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 25(1): 163-172
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0002-9637 PMID: 3982 Document Number: 107192
During the wet seasons of 1972 and possibly 1971, sentinel horses became infected by Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus in a temporally and geographically progressive manner inland from an enzootic marsh focus of virus on the Pacific coast of south-eastern Guatemala [cf. preceding abstract]. During the wet seasons of 1972 and 1973, VEE virus was detected by sentinel horses (and a sentinel hamster in 1972) in a small wood 10 km north of the marsh, but the virus was undetectable there during the dry seasons of 1973 and 1974 and the wet season of 1974. Species of the subgenus Melanoconion of Culex were found in this wood and at the marsh during August 1973. These observations are compatible with movement of VEE virus from the marsh habitat during some wet seasons. However, virus activity in this region adjacent to the marsh was quantitatively unpredictable on a yearly basis and occurred in only very focal habitats in 1971-74. The mechanisms of VEE virus movement from the marsh are currently unknown, but bats are under study as a likely possibility.