An efficient in vivo method for the isolation of Puumala virus in Syrian hamsters and the characterization of the isolates from Russia.

Puumala virus (PUUV) and other Arvicolinae-borne hantaviruses are difficult to cultivate in cell culture. To isolate these hantaviruses efficiently, hantavirus nucleocapsid protein (NP)-positive but seronegative wild rodents were selected by NP-detection ELISA. Three of 68 Myodes glareolus captured in Samara, Russia, were NP-positive and seronegative.

Epidemiological study of hantavirus infection in the Samara Region of European Russia.

European Russia is a highly endemic area of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), a rodent-borne zoonotic disease, caused by hantaviruses. In total, 145 small mammals of four species (Myodes glareolus, Apodemus flavicollis, A. agrarius, and A.