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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Virol.
Sec. Emerging and Reemerging Viruses
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fviro.2025.1544884

West Nile and Usutu viruses : current spreading and future threats in a warming northern Europe

Provisionally accepted
Justine Laverdeur Justine Laverdeur 1,2*Hélène Amory Hélène Amory 3Pablo Beckers Pablo Beckers 4Daniel Desmecht Daniel Desmecht 3Frédéric Francis Frédéric Francis 5Mutien Garigliany Mutien Garigliany 3Marie-Pierre Hayette Marie-Pierre Hayette 4Annick Linden Annick Linden 3Gilles Darcis Gilles Darcis 1
  • 1 Department of Infectious Diseases and General Internal Medicine, University Hospital of Liège, Liege, Liege, Belgium
  • 2 Department of General Practice, University Hospital of Liège, Liège, Belgium
  • 3 Department of Animal Pathology, Fundamental and Applied Research for Animals & Health, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
  • 4 Department of Clinical Microbiology, University Hospital of Liège, Liège, Liège, Belgium
  • 5 Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Entomology, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, Liège, Liège, Belgium

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Climate change heavily threatens planetary and human health. Arboviral infections are best studied using the One Health concept, due to their reliance on complex interactions between environmental factors, arthropod vectors and vertebrate hosts. This review focuses on two arboviruses, namely West Nile Virus (WNV) and Usutu Virus (USUV), both causing emerging public health issues in northern Europe. They are both maintained in an enzootic cycle involving birds and Culex spp mosquitoes. WNV has demonstrated its sensitivity to the consequences of climate change and there is already evidence that global warming contributes to its expansion in Europe. Future WNV indigenous transmission in northern Europe is therefore plausible. Usutu is a lesser known arbovirosis, sharing similar vectors and hosts as WNV. USUV has a similar geographic expansion to WNV, exhibiting some level of co-circulation. It is therefore crucial to monitor these viruses in the hitherto relatively spared regions of northern Europe.

    Keywords: Arbovirosis, West Nile virus, Usutu, zoonosis, One Health, Climate Change, Europe

    Received: 17 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Laverdeur, Amory, Beckers, Desmecht, Francis, Garigliany, Hayette, Linden and Darcis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Justine Laverdeur, Department of Infectious Diseases and General Internal Medicine, University Hospital of Liège, Liege, 4020, Liege, Belgium

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.