Isolation of Complete Equine Encephalitis Virus Genome from Human Swab Specimen, Peru

Abstract

While studying respiratory infections in Peru, we identified Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) in a nasopharyngeal swab, indicating that this alphavirus can be present in human respiratory secretions. Because VEEV may be infectious when aerosolized, our finding is relevant for the management of VEEV-infected patients and for VEEV transmission studies.

Keywords

• Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus
• VEEV
• complete genome
• next-generation sequencing
• pathogen discovery
• viruses