There have been two more deaths in Bavaria 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
Borna disease was
only known from farm animals.
But evidence since 2018 confirms: The virus also causes
deaths
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
Bavaria
from an infection with so-called classic
Borna viruses
.
"The
LGL received
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
Ministry of Health set up
a central office for research into the classic Borna viruses (BoDV-1), the
“Borna Focal Point Bavaria” project
.
Classic Borna viruses cause
brain inflammation
.
This ends fatally in almost all cases.
On average, two infections are known in Germany each year.
However, scientists assume that the number of
unreported
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
field shrew
behaves differently in Bavaria than in Saxony-Anhalt. ”For a
study
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
cat.
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
symptoms
.
The shrews excrete the virus in urine, feces and saliva - this can then infect other mammals and, in rare cases, humans.
"
Cats may
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
patients
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.
BoDV-1
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.
(kam / dpa) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen digital editorial network.
The
corona virus is
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.
List of rubric lists: © Kay Nietfeld