Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1971

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Bacteriology

Abstract

The extent of arthropod-borne virus activity in humans and domestic and wild vertebrates in South Dakota is not known. The World Health Organization (88) defines an arbovirus as follows: "an arbovirus must produce a viremic in one or more vertebrate species, multiply in some arthropod that feeds on viremic blood and be transmitted through feeding." Mosquitoes or other arthropods fill these requirements because female mosquitoes take blood as a requisite to egg maturation. Blood from any vertebrate host contains the essential nutrients for ovarian maturation (65). Not all mosquitoes prefer blood from the same host so a wide variety of mammals and birds act as sources. Hardy in 1967 (30) reported 21 arthropod-borne viruses were found in North America, of which 20 infected wildlife. Ten of the 21 arboviruses produce clinical disease in man or domestic animals, or both, but usually produce clinically inapparent infections in wildlife. Since mosquitoes are not active during the entire year in South Dakota, resident vertebrate hosts may serve as an overwintering reservoir for the arboviruses. With these facts in mind, a transmission cycle for arboviruses is proposed (Fig. 1). Similar transmission cycles have been proposed by Hess and Holden (35). This proposed transmission cycle places more weight on the pheasant as a host in arbovirus transmission than the other hosts shown in the cycle.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Mosquitoes -- South Dakota
Pheasants
Aborviruses

Description

Includes bibliographical references

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

88

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Rights

No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-NC/1.0/

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