Oropouche fever | |
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Classification and external resources | |
Specialty | infectious disease |
ICD-10 | A93.0 |
ICD-9-CM | 065 |
Oropouche fever | |
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Virus classification | |
Group: | Group V ((−)ssRNA) |
Family: | Bunyaviridae |
Genus: | Orthobunyavirus |
Oropouche fever is a tropical viral infection, a zoonosis similar to dengue fever, transmitted by biting midge (species Culicoides paraensis) and mosquitoes from the blood of sloths to humans. It occurs mainly in the Amazonic region, the Caribbean and Panama. The disease is named after the region where it was first described and isolated at the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory, in 1955, the Oropouche River in Trinidad and Tobago and is caused by a specific arbovirus, the Oropouche virus (OROV), of the Bunyaviridae family.
OROV was first described in Trinidad in 1955 when the prototype strain was isolated from the blood of a febrile human patient and from Coquillettidia venezuelensis mosquitoes. In Brazil, OROV was first described in 1960 when it was isolated from a three-toed sloth (Bradypus tridactylus) and Ochlerotatus serratus mosquitoes captured nearby during the construction of the Belém-Brasilia Highway.