Ťahyňa virus—A widespread, but neglected mosquito-borne virus in Europe

Abstract

Ťahyňa virus (TAHV) is an orthobunyavirus and was the first arbovirus isolated from mosquitoes in Europe and is associated with floodplain areas as a characteristic biotope, hares as reservoir hosts and the mammal-feeding mosquitoes Aedes vexans as the main vector. The disease caused by TAHV (“Valtice fever”) was detected in people with acute flu-like illness in the 1960s, and later the medical significance of TAHV became the subject of many studies. Although TAHV infections are widespread, the prevalence and number of actual cases, clinical manifestations in humans and animals and the ecology of transmission by mosquitoes and their vertebrate hosts are rarely reported. Despite its association with meningitis in humans, TAHV is a neglected human pathogen with unknown public health importance in Central Europe, and a potential emerging disease threat elsewhere in Europe due to extreme summer flooding events.