ArticleParasites & vectors2023
Detection of tick-borne encephalitis virus in ear tissue and dried blood spots from naturally infected wild rodents.
Article in Parasites & vectors, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Detection of Viral Nucleic Acid in Specimens Spotted on Commercial Filter Papers: A Review and Meta-Analysis.Viruses · 2026Pooled it
- The Suitability of Dried Blood Spot Sampling for Pharmacokinetic Studies in Veterinary Medicine.Veterinary sciences · 2025Article
- Different environmental factors predict the occurrence of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) and reveal new potential risk areas across Europe via geospatial models.International journal of health geographics · 2025Article
- Multiple variants of tick-borne encephalitis virus in voles, mice and ticks, the Netherlands, 2021 to 2023.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) can cause severe neurological disease in humans. Its geographical distribution is expanding in Western Europe with unresolved causes and spatial patterns, necessitating enhanced surveillance. Monitoring the virus in the environment is complicated, as it usually relies on destructive sampling of small rodents to test organs for TBEV, which in addition to ethical considerations also raises issues for long-term monitoring or longitudinal studies. Moreover, even when the virus is not detected in the blood or organs of the rodent, TBEV can still be transmitted from an infected tick to uninfected ticks feeding nearby. This is due to the ability of TBEV to replicate and migrate locally within the epidermis of small mammals, including those that do not appear to have systemic infection. This suggests that the virus may be detectable in skin biopsies, which has been confirmed in experimentally infected laboratory rodents, but it remains unknown if this sample type may be a viable alternative to destructively obtained samples in the monitoring of natural TBEV infection. Here we test ear tissue and dried blood spot (DBS) samples from rodents to determine whether TBEV-RNA can be detected in biological samples obtained non-destructively.
methodsRodents were live-trapped and sampled at three woodland areas in The Netherlands where presence of TBEV has previously been recorded. Ear tissue (n = 79) and DBSs (n = 112) were collected from a total of 117 individuals and were tested for TBEV-RNA by real-time RT-PCR.
resultsTBEV-RNA was detected in five rodents (4.3% of tested individuals), all of which had a TBEV-positive ear sample, while only two out of four of these individuals (for which a DBS was available) had a positive DBS. This equated to 6.3% of ear samples and 1.8% of DBSs testing positive for TBEV-RNA.
conclusionsWe provide the first evidence to our knowledge that TBEV-RNA can be detected in samples obtained non-destructively from naturally infected wild rodents, providing a viable sampling alternative suitable for longitudinal surveillance of the virus.
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