Mobility oflarge parts of the human population, whether related to commercial necessity, touristic activities or to migration induced by war and social pressure, carried and carries the risk of spreading infections. Modem air travel effectively circumvents existing quarantine regulations as infected individuals thereby can reach almost every geographic location while stiIl in the incubation phase of the disease. Hence, infections previously restricted to distinet regions due to their strict association with non-human reservoirs or vectors can suddenly surface in non-endemic areas where lacking experience and technical means make clinical and laboratory diagnosis difficult. Excellent examples for such situations are many vector- or rodent-borne viruses but also hepatitis viruses, the human immunodeficiency virus and, last but not least, filoviruses. The following articles are based on papers presented at an international symposium on "Imported Virus Infections" heI d at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute, University ofMunich, Munich, Germany on March 31 to Aprill, 1995. They illustrate today's knowledge on the epidemiology, dynamics of spread, as weIl as the frequently limited possibilities of prevention and therapeutic treat ment of associated disease. Special emphasis was placed on filovirus infections which, as if to highlight the topics of the symposium, reappeared and spread in Zaire in the first half of 1995. The symposium was dedicated to the memory of Friedrich Deinhardt M.D., virologist, professor and director of the Max von Pettenkofer Institute for Hygiene and Medical Microbiology from 1977 unt il he died on April 30, 1992.

Klappentext

This book deals both with the epidemiologic background and the specific characteristics of vector-borne and emerging viral infections which may be spread all over the world due to today's rapid transport of infected individuals or animal vectors. Detailed description of the situation with e.g. Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, Lassa, hepatitis, HIV and filoviruses helps to plan diagnostic approaches and to develop scenarios for the handling of patients suspected of carrying high hazard viruses.

Inhalt
Travel-related vector-borne virus infections and emerging virus diseases.- Imported vector- and rodent-borne virus infections an introduction.- WHO program on emerging virus diseases.- Arboviruses as imported disease agents: the need for increased awareness.- Arboviruses causing neurological disorders in the central nervous system.- Sandfly fever viruses in Italy.- Vector-borne viral diseases in Sweden a short review.- Travel-related vector-borne virus infections in Germany.- Imported tropical virus infections in Germany.- Filovirus infections.- Emerging and reemerging of filoviruses.- Characterization of a new Marburg virus isolated from a 1987 fatal case in Kenya.- Experimental infection of cynomolgus macaques with Ebola-Reston filoviruses from the 19891990 U.S. epizootic.- Passive immunization of Ebola virus-infected cynomolgus monkeys with immunoglobulin from hyperimmune horses.- Patients infected with high-hazard viruses: scientific basis for infection control.- Hepatitis viruses and human immunodeficiency virus.- Relative importance of the enterically transmitted human hepatitis viruses type A and E as a cause of foreign travel associated hepatitis.- Significance of imported hepatitis B virus infections.- Genotypes of hepatitis C virus isolates from different parts of the world.- HIV-1 subtype O: epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and perspectives of the evolution of HIV.