Duvenhage lyssavirus

Duvenhage lyssavirus (DUVV) is a member of the genus Lyssavirus, which also contains the rabies virus. The virus was discovered in 1970, when a South African farmer (after whom the virus is named) died of a rabies-like encephalitic illness, after being bitten by a bat.^[2] In 2006, Duvenhage virus killed a second person, when a man was scratched by a bat in North West Province, South Africa, 80 km from the 1970 infection.^[3] He developed a rabies-like illness 27 days after the bat encounter, and died 14 days after the onset of illness. A 34-year-old woman who died in Amsterdam on December 8, 2007, was the third recorded fatality. She had been scratched on the nose by a small bat while travelling through Kenya in October 2007, and was admitted to hospital four weeks later with rabies-like symptoms.^[4]

Duvenhage lyssavirus
Virus classification
(unranked):	Virus
Realm:	Riboviria
Kingdom:	Orthornavirae
Phylum:	Negarnaviricota
Class:	Monjiviricetes
Order:	Mononegavirales
Family:	Rhabdoviridae
Genus:	Lyssavirus
Species:	Duvenhage lyssavirus
Synonyms[1]
Duvenhage virus

Microbats are believed to be the natural reservoir of Duvenhage virus. It has been isolated twice from insectivorous bats, in 1981 from Miniopterus schreibersi, and in 1986 from Nycteris thebaica,^[3] and the virus is closely related to another bat-associated lyssavirus endemic to Africa, Lagos bat lyssavirus.

References

1. Walker, Peter (15 June 2015). "Implementation of taxon-wide non-Latinized binomial species names in the family Rhabdoviridae" (PDF). International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Retrieved 16 September 2019. Rabies virus Rabies lyssavirus rabies virus (RABV)[M13215]
2. Tignor G. H.; Murphy, F. A.; Clark, H. F.; Shope, R. E.; Madore, P.; Bauer, S. P.; Buckley, S. M.; Meredith, C. D. (1977). "Duvenhage Virus: Morphological, Biochemical, Histopathological and Antigenic Relationships to the Rabies Serogroup" (PDF). Journal of General Virology. 37 (3): 595–611. doi:10.1099/0022-1317-37-3-595.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
3. Paweska, J. T.; Blumberg, L. H.; Liebenberg, C.; Hewlett, R. H.; Grobbelaar, A. A.; Leman, P. A.; Croft, J. E.; Nel, L. H.; Nutt, L.; Swanepoel, R. (December 2006). "Fatal Human Infection with Rabies-Related Duvenhage Virus, South Africa" (PDF). Emerging Infectious Diseases. 12 (12): 1965–1967. doi:10.3201/eid1212.060764. PMC 3291369. PMID 17326954.
4. van Thiel, P. P.; van den Hoek, J. A.; Eftimov, F.; Tepaske, R.; Zaaijer, H. J.; Spanjaard, L.; de Boer, H. E.; van Doornum G. J.; Schutten M.; Osterhaus, A.; Kager, P. A. (January 2008). "Fatal Case of Human Rabies (Duvenhage Virus) from a Bat in Kenya: The Netherlands, December 2007" (PDF). Eurosurveillance. 13 (2): 1–2. doi:10.2807/ese.13.02.08007-en. PMID 18445390. Article ID 8007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-02-24.