Overview

• Pepper, the hunting cat of UF virologist John Lednicky, delivered an Everglades short-tailed shrew that tested positive for a previously unidentified orthoreovirus.
• The novel pathogen has been officially designated Gainesville shrew mammalian orthoreovirus type 3 strain UF-1 after its complete genomic coding sequences were published in Microbiology Resource Announcements.
• Mammalian orthoreoviruses are known to infect humans and other mammals and can reassort like influenza viruses when two strains invade the same cell.
• No human infections of UF-1 have been reported but similar orthoreoviruses have been implicated in rare cases of encephalitis, meningitis and gastroenteritis in children.
• The University of Florida team is preparing serology and immunology studies to evaluate the new strain’s prevalence in wildlife, pets and potential risk to human health.