Epizootiological survey ofhantavirus among rodent species

Hantaviral antibodies were detected in the sera from Apodemus (A.) agrarius and A. peninsulae captured in Ningxia province, China by several different serological diagnostic methods. A total of 409 sera from rodent and insectivore species were collected in 1999 and examined by indirect im-munofluorescent antibody assay (IFA). Among them, 19 of 191 (9.9%) sera of A. agrarius and 1 of 13 (7. 7 %) sera of A. peninsulae were positive for han-taviral antibodies. The other species (Rattus norvegicus, Mus musculus, Cricetulus triton, and Sorex cylindricauda) were negative. The reaction pat-tern of positive serum was characterized as scattered and granular virus anti-gens in the cytoplasm of hantavirus infected Vero E6 cells. Some of the A. agrarius sera positive for hantavirus were further examined by Western blot-ting (WB) , enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and the focus re-duction neutralization test (FRNT). By WB, positive sera showed the same specific reaction pattern of baculovirus-expressed recombinant hantaviral nu