Conveners
Session 6: Emerging Pathogens II
- Stephan Ludwig
- André Schreiber
Andes virus (ANDV), Ebola virus (EBOV), and Nipah virus (NiV) are Risk Group-4 viruses that cause fatal zoonotic spillover in South America, Africa, and Asia, respectively. All three viruses cause severe vascular diseases, although they belong to distinct virus families. A major question in comparative virology is if different viruses have similar effects on the same cell-types they...
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) normally exits host cells as quasi-enveloped particles by exploiting multivesicular bodies (MVBs), a process mediated by the accessory protein pORF3. To investigate the functional relevance of this pathway, an ORF3-deficient genotype 3c mutant (HEVΔORF3) was generated and analyzed in two human cell lines: hepatoma-derived PLC/PRF/5 and lung carcinoma-derived A549/D3...
Oropouche virus (OROV) has emerged as a significant health threat in Central and South America in 2024. Belonging to the genus Orthobunyavirus (family Peribunyaviridae), it is primarily transmitted by Culicoides midges; however, the role of mosquitoes in its transmission cycle has not been fully clarified. This study assesses the vector competence of five mosquito species (Culex torrentium,...
Mesoniviruses (Order: Nidovirales) are generally considered insect-specific viruses that do not infect vertebrates. However, this assumption was recently challenged by the detection of Alphamesonivirus-1 (AMV1) in two horses that died of acute respiratory syndrome in Italy (Jurisic et al.; J. Virol. 2025). Genetic analysis revealed a close relationship between the viral sequences isolated...
Active wildlife surveillance, as part of a One Health approach, enables an early detection of emerging infections to allow the prevention of wildlife-human spillover events. The Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa) is a key wildlife species, which is widely distributed in Europe and easily adapts to different habitats. Wild boar and domestic pigs are the main reservoir for hepatitis E virus...
Chandipura virus (CHPV) is a sandfly-borne vesiculovirus, family Rhabdoviridae, causing outbreaks of febrile illness and severe neuroinvasive disease. Children can develop an acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) with a case fatality rate of 55-78%. Several outbreaks of CHPV have been reported in India. In 2024, India experienced a large outbreak with 245 cases of AES including 82 deaths. No human...
