Isolation of eastern encephalitis virus in Guatemala from sentinel hamsters exposed during 1968

Abstract

Three strains of Eastern encephalitis (EE) virus were recovered from sentinel hamsters exposed to flying arthropods during August 1968 in wet, forested, and marshy habitats near the Pasión River in Sayaxché, Department of Petén, in northern Guatemala. The viruses were identified by plaque-reduction neutralization tests in chicken embryonic cell cultures. Titers of virus in sentinel hamster tissues usually ranged between 10 to the third potency and 10 to the seventh potency pfu/0.2 gm. These isolations extended the geographic distribution of EE virus to Guatemala and represented only the second time that EE virus has been isolated in Central America between Panama and northern Mexico, and the first time that virus isolations strongly suggest an endemic cycle in northern Central America involving glying vector arthropods(AU)