Dogs as Sentinels for Human Infection with Japanese Encephalitis Virus

Abstract

Because serosurveys of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) among wild animals and pigs may not accurately reflect risk for humans in urban/residential areas, we examined seroprevalence among dogs and cats. We found that JEV-infected mosquitoes have spread throughout Japan and that dogs, but not cats, might be good sentinels for monitoring JEV infection in urban/residential areas.

Keywords

• Sentinel surveillance
• encephalitis
• Japanese
• dogs
• viruses
• vector-borne infections