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The hamster as a secondary reservoir host of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

H. H. Skinner ,
E. H. Knight  and
L. S. Buckley
H. H. Skinner
Affiliation:
Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, Woking Surrey
E. H. Knight
Affiliation:
Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, Woking Surrey
L. S. Buckley
Affiliation:
Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, Woking Surrey
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Summary

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Exposure of weaned hamsters to an environment contaminated with LCM virus shed by tolerantly infected mice led to short subclinical infections. If infection occurred in early pregnancy, the young appeared normal at birth but their tissues were highly infective. For two to three months their bites and urine were also highly infective. A viraemia did not persist long enough for successive vertical transmissions of the infection to be likely. However, the viruria persisted in most prenatally infected hamsters for at least eight months and under simulated field conditions was a potent virus source for contact infections, leading to further generations of prenatally infected young. In the absence of the natural reservoir host, such long-term carriers could have been a major factor in causing the build-up of infection in colonies of hamsters which, when purchased as household pets, led to a recent spate of human clinical infections in Germany and the U.S.A.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 299 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

References

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