Berlin (dpa) - A mosquito-borne virus from Africa which causes
fever and headaches has spread to Germany, possibly causing mass
deaths of birds, tropical medicine scientists in Hamburg said
Wednesday.
The usutu virus was discovered in dead thrushes near the central
city of Frankfurt, but has not been observed in humans in Germany
yet. In Italy, humans caught the non-fatal virus in 2009 after being
stung by mosquitoes.
Usutu causes fever, a rash and headaches and can lead to
encephalitis in the elderly and weak. The growing threat from new
viruses has been in the news with the release this month of the US
thriller movie Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh.
The Bernhard Nocht Institute, a laboratory in Hamburg specializing
in tropical diseases, said it had found the virus in the birds, but
proof was still not there that usutu from mosquito stings was the
cause of "thousands" of deaths of thrushes in southern Germany.
The virus has been slowly spreading northwards in the wild. Birds
in Austria are known to have caught the virus in 2002.
Copyright 2011 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH