Aude Lalis
National Museum of Natural History, France
Title: The first identification of tula hantavirus in Iran
Biography
Biography: Aude Lalis
Abstract
The control and prevention of rodent-borne diseases is mainly based on our knowledge of the infectious status of their reservoir hosts and on their identification. Small mammals including rodents, shrews, moles and bats are reservoirs of hantaviruses. Although the majority of hantaviral infections are reported from east Asian countries such as Korea and China, the infection has also been reported in the Middle-East countries including Iran. As the first attempt looking for evidence of hantavirus reservoir in Iran, this study aimed to investigate hantaviral infection in rodents from East-Azerbaijan Province, Northwest of Iran in 2017 and 2018 in collaboration with Pasteur Institute of Iran. Spleen and lung samples were obtained from 200 trapped small mammals and were used for rodent identification and molecular detection of hantaviruses. The results of Pan-hantavirus nested RT-PCR and sequence analysis showed the presence of Tula hantavirus RNA in one lung specimen of glirid rodent belonging to the genus dryomys nitedula. Phylogenetic analysis showed the similarity of the Tula virus identified in this study with Tula hantavirus strains from Turkey. This study for the first time showed Tula virus infection in Iran and in dryomys nitedula as the first formal record from a non-murid rodents. The current study not only is the first genetic identification of any hantavirus circulating in Iran, it is also the first report of a hantaviral infection (Tula virus) in a rodent in this country.