MOSQUITO SURVEILLANCE FOR 15 YEARS REVEALS HIGH GENETIC DIVERSITY AMONG WEST NILE VIRUSES IN ISRAEL

Yaniv Lustig ¹ Musa Hindiyeh ^1,5 Laor Orshan ² Leah Weiss ¹ Ravit Koren ¹ Shiri Katz-Likvornik ¹ Hila Zadka ³ Aharona Glatman-Freedman ^3,4 Ella Mendelson ^1,5 Lester M. Shulman ^1,5

¹Ministry of Health, Central Virology Laboratory, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel
²Laboratory of Entomology, Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel
³Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Ramat-Gan, Israel
⁴Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York, USA
⁵Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

West Nile Virus (WNV) is endemic in Israel and has been the cause of several outbreaks in recent years. In 2000, a countrywide mosquito survey was established to monitor WNV activity and characterize viral genotypes in Israel. We analyzed data from 7135 pools containing 277 186 mosquitoes collected over the past 15 years and, here, report partial sequences of WNV genomes obtained from 102 of the 336 positive mosquito pools. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that cluster 4 and the Mediterranean and Eastern European subtypes of cluster 2 within WNV lineage 1 circulated in Israel, as did WNV lineage 2, highlighting a high genetic diversity of WNV genotypes in our region. As a major crossroads for bird migration between Africa and Eurasia and with a long history of human infection, Israel serves as a resource hub for WNV in Africa and Eurasia and provides valuable information on WNV circulation in these regions.