Experimental infection with Puumala virus, the etiologic agent of nephropathia epidemica, in bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus)

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Abstract
Subclinical chronic infections, characterized by transient viremia, prolonged virus shedding in oropharyngeal secretions and feces, and virus persistence in tissues (particularly lung), developed in laboratory-bred weanling bank voles (C. glareolus) inoculated i.m. with Puumala virus (strain Hallnas), the etiologic agent of nephropathia epidemica. Viral antigen, as evidenced by granular fluorescence, was detected in the lungs, liver, spleen, pancreas, salivary glands, and small intestine. Infectious virus was found in the lungs 14-270 days postinoculation, and feces and urine collected 35-130 days postinoculation were regularly and sporadically infectious, respectively. Horizontal transmission coincided with virus shedding in oropharyngeal secretions. Suckling voles also developed asymptomatic persistent infections after intracerebral inoculation, and histopathological changes were absent despite widespread infection. These data resemble findings in Apodemus agrarius experimentally infected with Hantaan virus, the prototype virus of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, suggesting that the mechanisms of maintenance and transmission of Puumala and Hantaan viruses are similar in their respective wild-rodent hosts.