Abstract:
West Nile Virus (WNV), a
zoonotic mosquito-borne virus (mobovirus)
originally isolated from the blood of a febrile
Ugandan woman in 1937, caused substantial
human disease in Europe starting in the
1990s and emerged in 1999 in The United
States of America (USA) for the first time. It
has become an important concern for public
health due to its reemergence and frequent
human outbreaks. The enzootic transmission
cycle of arboviruses involves primary wild
animals; however, spillover transmission is
reported frequently in domestic animals.
Dogs are dead-end hosts in WNV
transmission epidemiology. However,
detecting WNV antibodies in the dog
population can indicate the virus’s presence
and spread in different areas. The virus is
known to be endemic in parts of Romania,
including Iași County. The study aimed at
assessing the prevalence of anti-WNV
antibodies in indoor dogs from an urban area
in Iași, where all the conditions for virus
transmission are met (wetland, density of
wildlife hosts including birds, abundance of
vectors, domestic mammal hosts and
synanthropic birds). Using a commercial
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(INGEZIM West Nile COMPAC, Ingenasa,
Madrid, Spain), serum samples collected
from indoor dogs between 2020–2022 were
screened for WNV antibodies. The results
showed an overall seroprevalence of 12.2%.
Detection of specific antibodies in dogs suggests a possible establishment of an
urban cycle for WNV or other antigenically
related flaviviruses.
