Preparing for Vector-borne Diseases in the UK

Background
The expanding range of many vector-borne viruses, combined with their propensity to evolve and adapt, makes surveillance for viruses such as West Nile virus (WNV) and African horse sickness (AHS) challenging, but important. These challenges include detection in wildlife reservoirs, improving our understanding of virus–vector interactions, and the need to constantly update and improve diagnostic tests.

West Nile virus
West Nile virus is an arthropod-borne Flavivirus maintained in enzootic transmission cycles between birds and mosquitoes, but incidental infection of humans and horses can lead to neuroinvasive disease (Work et al. 1955; Hubalek 2001). Following an apparent expansion in range across the Americas and Europe that began in the 1990s, WNV is now the world’s most widely distributed arbovirus (Kramer et al. 2008). The number of human and equine WNV outbreaks reported in Europe has increased over the past decade (Calistri et al. 2010), and phylogenetic studies on WNV strains indicate that the virus has become established in Europe (Calistri et al. 2010; Monaco et al.2010). [...]