Culex (Eumelanomyia) Rubinotus Theobald as Vector of Banzi, Germiston and Witwatersrand Viruses II. Infections in sentinel hamsters and wild rodents

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Abstract
Three strains of Banzi virus, 54 of Germiston virus and 55 of Witwatersrand virus were isolated from hamsters exposed as virus sentinels at 2 localities in South Africa and 1 in Mocambique. Five surviving hamsters had antibodies to Banzi virus and 1 to Germiston virus. Infection frequencies per 100 hamster-days of exposure varied from 0.17 to 7.7 with Germiston virus and from 0.17 to 8.4 with Witwatersrand virus. It seemed likely that recorded infection frequencies of Banzi virus were not representative of actual infections because of mortality among Banzi-infected hamsters caused by Germiston and Witwatersrand viruses. At both study sites in South Africa, the hamsters were exposed in areas where Culex rubinotus was shown at the time to be infected with the same viruses, and it concluded that C. rubinotus was the cause of the infections in the hamster. In Mocambique some infections in hamsters occurred during the dry season. One strain of Banzi virus was isolated from Praomys natalensis (Rodentia) from Mocambique. Two sera from P. natalensis from South Africa contained antibodies to Banzi virus and another 2 sera had antibodies to Witwatersrand virus. It is concluded that wild rodents are the vertebrate maintenance hosts of these viruses.

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