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. 2023 Nov 18;10(11):661.
doi: 10.3390/vetsci10110661.

Indication of West Nile Virus (WNV) Lineage 2 Overwintering among Wild Birds in the Regions of Peloponnese and Western Greece

Zoi Athanasakopoulou  1 , Marina Sofia  1 , Vassilis Skampardonis  1 , Alexios Giannakopoulos  1 , Periklis Birtsas  2 , Konstantinos Tsolakos  3 , Vassiliki Spyrou  4 , Dimitris C Chatzopoulos  5 , Maria Satra  5 , Vassilis Diamantopoulos  6 , Spyridoula Mpellou  7 , Dimitrios Galamatis  4 , Vasileios G Papatsiros  8 , Charalambos Billinis  1
Affiliations

Indication of West Nile Virus (WNV) Lineage 2 Overwintering among Wild Birds in the Regions of Peloponnese and Western Greece

Zoi Athanasakopoulou et al. Vet Sci. .

Abstract

West Nile virus (WNV), a zoonotic mosquito-borne virus, has recently caused human outbreaks in Europe, including Greece. Its transmission cycle in nature includes wild birds as amplifying hosts and ornithophilic mosquito vectors. The aim of this study was to assess WNV circulation among wild birds from two regions of Greece, Peloponnese and Western Greece, during 2022. To this end, a total of 511 birds belonging to 37 different species were sampled and molecularly screened. WNV RNA was detected from February to November in a total of 71 wild birds of nine species originating from both investigated regions. The first eight positive samples were sequenced on a part of NS3 and, according to the phylogenetic analysis, they belonged to evolutionary lineage 2 and presented similarity to previous outbreak-causing Greek strains (Argolis 2017, Macedonia 2010 and 2012). It was more likely to identify a PCR positive bird as the population density and the distance from water sources decreased. The present report provides evidence of WNV occurrence in both Peloponnese and Western Greece during 2022 and underlines its possible overwintering, highlighting the need for avian species surveillance to be conducted annually and throughout the year. Magpies are proposed as sentinels for WNV monitoring.

Keywords: Greece; West Nile virus; wild birds.

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Conflict of interest statement

Spyridoula Mpellou is an employee in Company Bioefarmoges Eleftheriou LP—Integrated Mosquito Control. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of Peloponnese and Western Greece regions. Sampling sites of wild birds are depicted with red dots. The boundaries of the regional units (Peloponnese region: Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia, Corinthia and Messenia, Western Greece region: Achaia, Ilia and Aitoloakarnania) are outlined with blue color.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Map of the study area. Locations of WNV positive and negative wild birds are depicted with red and green dots, respectively. The boundaries of the regional units (Peloponnese region: Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia, Corinthia and Messenia, Western Greece region: Achaia, Ilia and Aitoloakarnania) are outlined with blue color.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic tree depicting the relationships of eight WNV lineage 2 strains, isolated from the Peloponnese region in 2022 (black triangles), and 49 WNV strains retrieved from GenBank database. YFV strain DQ235229.1 was used as an outgroup. The evolutionary history was inferred using the Neighbor-Joining method and distances were computed using the LogDet (Tamura–Kumar) method. The rate variation among sites was modeled with a gamma distribution (shape parameter = 0.87). Bootstrap values (expressed as percentages of 1000 replications) are shown at the branch points; only values over 50% are indicated. This analysis involved 58 nucleotide sequences and there was a total of 398 positions in the final dataset.
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