Researchers from CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) and Malaysia's National Public Health Laboratory outline the first report of an orthoreovirus in association with an acute human respiratory disease.
Chua KB, Crameri G, Hyatt A,Yu M, Tompang MR, Rosli J, McEachern J, Crameri S, Kumarasamy V, Eaton BT, Wang LF. 2007. A previously unknown reovirus of bat origin is associated with an acute respiratory disease in humans. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 104(27): 11424-11429.
CSIRO scientists have played a key role in uncovering a new reovirus that can cause a respiratory tract illness in humans.
Respiratory infections constitute the most widespread human infectious diseases and a substantial proportion of them are caused by unknownagents.
As reported in the 3 July 2007 print issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the new reovirus was discovered by a collaborative team from CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, Victoria and the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) in Selangor, Malaysia.
Melaka virus
The new virus – named Melaka virus after the location in Malaysia where it was found – was isolated from a 39-year-old male patient with acute respiratory disease in March 2006. Two of the patient's family members developed similar symptoms approximately one week later and had serological evidence of infection with the same virus.
Bat-borne viruses
It's important to learn more about Melaka virus as these insights will help improve the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory tract infections in people.
Epidemiological tracing uncovered that the family was exposed to a bat in the house about one week before the father became ill.
Melaka virus is related to a small group of reoviruses that were previously only known from bats. Genetic sequencing indicates that the new virus is very closely related to an orthoreovirus, Pulau virus, that was isolated in 1999 from fruit bats (Pteropus hypomelanus) on Tioman Island in Malaysia.
Screening of sera collected from human volunteers on Tioman Island revealed that 14 out of 109 (13 per cent) were positive to both Pulua and Melaka viruses.
Human respiratory tract illness
The paper A previously unknown reovirus of bat origin is associated with an acute respiratory disease in humans provides the first report of an orthoreovirus in association with an acute human respiratory disease. This paper indicates that bat-borne reoviruses can be transmitted to and cause clinical disease in humans.
As long as animals and humans continue to encroach into bat habitats, the number of viruses spilling over from bats into other species is likely to increase.
Improving diagnosis and treatment
Learning more about Melaka and other new viruses that can cause respiratory infections will help improve the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory tract illness in humans.
Read the paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) [external link] and learn more about Geelong: Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) (Vic).
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