UK relaunches West Nile virus surveillance:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The UK's Health Protection Agency has launched its latest annual West Nile virus enhanced surveillance programme. The programme involves testing for WNV in blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples, taken from all patients with encephalitis or viral meningitis with no known cause. The HPA has requested that clinicians and laboratories refer relevant samples to the HPA's central laboratory in Porton Down. The scheme, which is in its fourth year, operates during the UK's summer months, when there is WNV activity in other countries, and is designed to screen those returning from countries where WNV has an impact, such as Africa, west and central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.