ANIMAL BIODIVERSITY AND EMERGING DISEASES Recent Discoveries of New Hantaviruses Widen Their Range and Question Their Origins

Hantaviruses belong to the Bunyaviridae family. While usually hosted by wild mam-mals, they are potentially pathogenic for humans, and several serologically distinct groups associated with different syndromes have been identified. Yet, investigations have mostly been conducted where human infections by hantaviruses constitute a real andwell-identified public health problem, i.e., the holarctic and neotropical areas. Some hantaviruses have also been described from a Suncus murinus in India and a Bandicota indica in Thailand. In addition, recent investigations in Cambodia revealed new Han-tavirus types. More recently, two new Hantavirus species were described: Sangassou from a Hylomyscus simus, and Tanganya from a Crocidura theresae, both from Africa (Guinea), thus strongly questioning the current views about geographic range, evolution, and epidemiology of hantaviruses. In such a framework, we have conducted a survey of Hantavirus diversity in Southeast Asia which allows us to isolate the Thailand virus and address questions about the taxonomy of their rodent hosts. Here we present a molecular analysis of representatives of all currently known Hantavirus species, thus allowing the comparison between the newly described ones with a large range sampl