Seroprevalence of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus in Small-Animal Veterinarians and Nurses in the Japanese Prefecture with the Highest Case Load

Seroprevalence of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus in Small-Animal Veterinarians and Nurses in the Japanese Prefecture with the Highest Case Load

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Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) is the causative agent of SFTS, an emerging tick-borne disease in East Asia, and is maintained in enzootic cycles involving ticks and a range of wild animal hosts.Direct transmission of SFTSV from cats and dogs to humans has bempresas.com been identified in Japan, suggesting that veterinarians and veterinary nurses involved in small-animal practice are at occupational risk of SFTSV infection.To characterize this risk, we performed a sero-epidemiological survey in small-animal-practice workers and healthy blood donors in Miyazaki prefecture, which is the prefecture with the highest per capita number of recorded cases of SFTS in Japan.Three small-animal-practice workers were identified as seropositive by ELISA, but one had a negative neutralization-test result and so was finally determined to be seronegative, giving a seropositive rate of 2.

2% (2 click here of 90), which was significantly higher than that in healthy blood donors (0%, 0 of 1000; p < 0.05).The seroprevalence identified here in small-animal-practice workers was slightly higher than that previously reported in other high-risk workers engaged in agriculture and forestry in Japan.Thus, enhancement of small-animal-practice workers’ awareness of biosafety at animal hospitals is necessary for control of SFTSV.