A
new study challenges the tenet that herpes viruses, like most enveloped
viruses, are relatively unstable outside their host. Under a variety of
conditions equine herpesvirus remained stable and infectious over a three week
period. This suggests that untreated water could be a source of infection by
some herpesviruses.
Enveloped
viruses such as herpesviruses can cause disease when spread from host to host
by aerosol transmission. They are generally thought to be unstable in the
environment, requiring rapid and direct transfer among hosts in order to
'survive' and remain infectious. A research team lead by scientists from the
Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in collaboration with the
Institut für Virologie of the Freie Universität Berlin tested this assumption
by spiking water with equine herpesviruses under different conditions over a
three week period and examining whether viral DNA could be retrieved and to what
extent the virus remained infectious after having been in the water.
The
results demonstrate that the virus does remain stable and infectious for up to
three weeks, with pH and temperature being the two most important factors to
determine how long the virus 'survived'. Surprisingly, the addition of soil to
the water appeared to "pull" the virus out of the water and stabilize
it in the soil, suggesting that in natural water bodies viruses may persist for
an extended time without infecting additional hosts. Therefore, in the case of
equine herpesviruses, horses or other mammals susceptible to these viruses
could be infected by herpesviruses from water bodies long after the animals
that shed the virus had left the area.
These
results suggest that viruses such as equine herpesviruses may become a part of
the environmental "virome" and remain infectious. Equine
herpesviruses have spread among mammals such as polar bears and rhinos without
direct contact with horses or their relatives in both the wild and in captivity,
often resulting in fatal consequences. Shared water sources may be a source and
potential vector for infection.
For
further details see:
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle
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