S.G. Rodrigues

Isolation of dengue 2 virus from a patient with central nervous system involvement (transverse myelitis)

A dengue fever case is described in a 58-year-old male patient with febrile illness and thrombocytopenia complicated by neurological involvement characterized by transverse myelitis followed by weakness of both legs and flaccid paralysis. Muscle strength was much diminished and bilateral areflexia was observed. Dengue 2 (DEN-2) virus was isolated and the patient sero-converted by hemagglutination-inhibition and IgM-ELISA tests. The RT-PCR test was positive to DEN-2 in acute phase serum and culture supernatant, but negative in the cerebrospinal fluid. After three weeks of hospitalization the patient was discharged. No other infectious agent was detected in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples. The patient had full recovery from paralysis six months after the onset of DEN-2 infection.

Isolation of Yellow Fever Virus from Nulliparous Haemagogus (Haemagogus) janthinomys in Eastern Amazonia

In 1998, an epizootic of yellow fever (YF) killed many howler monkeys (Alouatta spp.) in eastern Amazonia near the city of Altamira. An infection level with YF virus of approximately 3.6% was determined from analysis of 456 females of Haemagogus janthinomys Dyar, the main enzootic YF vector in South America. One month later, a second study of 164 females captured in the same place led to infection levels of 0.8% for parous and 2.9% for nulliparous females. These results lead to the conclusion that vertical transmission, one of the key elements in the epidemiology of YF, occurs in South America as it does in Africa.