Dangerous new virus: Infection almost always ends fatally - Bavaria is particularly badly affected

In Bavaria there have been two more deaths this year due to a new dangerous virus.

According to scientists, the number of unreported cases could be higher.

• For a long time Bornash disease was only known from farm animals.

• But people also get sick - the infection is almost always fatal.

• The Free State is particularly affected.

Regensburg * - For a long time

only known from farm animals.

But evidence since 2018 confirms: The virus also causes

in humans in Germany

.

This year more have been added.

Borna virus: Two more deaths in Bavaria after encephalitis

Two other people died this year in

from an infection with so-called classic

.

"The

two more deaths in 2020 related to a BoDV-1 infection." The Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) informed the German Press Agency.

Borna virus in Bavaria: infection triggers encephalitis - and almost always ends fatally

In the summer, the Bavarian

a central office for research into the classic Borna viruses (BoDV-1), the

.

Classic Borna viruses cause

.

This ends fatally in almost all cases.

On average, two infections are known in Germany each year.

However, scientists assume that the number of

cases is higher - up to six cases.

A focus of the infections is in Bavaria.

"We don't know why this is so," says doctor and epidemiologist Kirsten Pörtner from the Robert Koch Institute * (RKI).

“It is possible that people in Bavaria are now looking more closely and are more likely to test for the virus in the case of a brain inflammation for an unknown cause.

But it is also possible that the

behaves differently in Bavaria than in Saxony-Anhalt. ”For a

on the dangerous virus

presented on Tuesday

, she asked the relatives of eight patients who died of the virus.

The result: everyone lived in the country.

Seven had a

Borna virus in Bavaria: field shrew as host of the pathogen

The only known reservoir host of the pathogen is the field shrew (Crocidura leucodon), in which the infection does not cause any severe

.

The shrews excrete the virus in urine, feces and saliva - this can then infect other mammals and, in rare cases, humans.

"

bring

their owners into contact with shrews and the virus through their hunting behavior - the cats themselves were inconspicuous."

At the beginning of 2020, a study by the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) and the University of Regensburg * published in the specialist magazine "The Lancet Infectious Diseases" revealed that far more people had died of infection with the classic Borna virus in recent years are known as previously.

Brain inflammation: Very rare Borna virus: Two more deaths in Bavaria in 2020 https://t.co/cyQJqpKwFB

- stern (@sternde) November 25, 2020

Borna virus detected: extent of the virus still unknown

The pathogen was

detected

in stored brain samples from deceased

in Bavaria

, researchers reported.

A total of at least 14 people verifiably died of encephalitis caused by the classic Borna virus between 1995 and 2019.

To what extent the virus could be behind brain infections with unknown cause is still unclear.

It has been known for much longer that farm animals such as horses and sheep can become infected with Bornash's disease and die from it.

occurs in Germany in Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and adjacent parts of neighboring federal states.

There are also cases of Bornasch's disease in animals in parts of Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

The

currently dominating

the headlines.

The partial lockdown in Germany was extended beyond November.

We'll keep you up to date in our Bayern ticker.

You can always read all the news from Regensburg and the surrounding area as well as all of Bavaria with us.

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