PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE DETECTION OF HANTAVIRUS IN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1995

Do Quang Ha¹, Vu Thi Que Huong¹, Huynh Thi Kim Loan¹,

Dinh Quoc Thong¹, Tom Solomon², Bernard Le Guenno³.

¹. Laboratoire des Arbovirus, Institut Pasteur d’HCM ville.

². Welcome Trust Clinical Research Unit, Centre for Tropical Diseases.

³. Centre National de Référence des Fièvres Hémorragiques virales, Institut Pasteur à Paris.

Viruses in the Hantavirus genus, family Bunyaviridae, include a number of important pathogens that cause haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in human. Four serologically distinct groups of hantaviruses have been reported and each agent is closely associated with a specific rodent host: Hantaan (Apodemus), Seoul (Rattus), Pumala (Clethrionomys) and Prospect Hill (Microtus). Hantaviruses were distributed world-wide and HFRS cases occurred in Asia but in Vietnam where until now, there is no report describing this disease in human.

In 1995, 78 serum samples of haemorrhagic fever patients which were negative for dengue antibodies, 92 healthy human and 58 rodent sera (Rattus norvegicus, Rattus exulans, Rattus rattus) were collected for detection of hantavirus antibodies. These sera were assayed by the IgG-capture ELISA test.

All these sera taken from healthy human and rodents were negative for Hantavirus antibodies. Among 78 sera of haemorrhagic fever patients, there were 26.9% positive with IPH (Seoul, Puumala and Hantaan) antigens and 35.9% were positive with HTN (Hantaan) antigen in IgG-ELISA test. These positive sera were reconfirmed by Pasteur Institute Paris and NAMRU-2 in Indonesia.

These preliminary results showed that there is circulation of Hantavirus in the Southern Vietnam.