Abstract
We describe two cases of West Nile (WN) encephalitis in a married couple in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1999. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction performed on a brain specimen from the husband detected a WN viral strain nearly identical to avian strains recovered in Israel in 1998 (99.9% genomic sequence homology) and in New York in 1999 (99.8%). This result supports the hypothesis that the 1999 WN virus epidemic in the United States originated from the introduction of a strain that had been circulating in Israel.
Publication types
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Case Reports
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Comparative Study
MeSH terms
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Aged
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Antibodies, Viral / blood
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Antibodies, Viral / cerebrospinal fluid
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Brain / virology
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Female
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Humans
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Immunoglobulin M / blood
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Immunoglobulin M / cerebrospinal fluid
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Israel
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Male
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New York / epidemiology
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RNA, Viral / analysis
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Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
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Treatment Outcome
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West Nile Fever / blood
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West Nile Fever / cerebrospinal fluid
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West Nile Fever / epidemiology
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West Nile Fever / immunology
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West Nile Fever / virology*
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West Nile virus / classification
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West Nile virus / genetics*
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West Nile virus / immunology
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West Nile virus / isolation & purification
Substances
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Antibodies, Viral
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Immunoglobulin M
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RNA, Viral