Hantaan virus surveillance in small mammals at firing points 10 and 60, Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, Republic of Korea

We used epidemiological data and indirect fluorescent antibody tests to determine the Hantaan virus (HTNV) antibody-positive (Ab+) prevalence in small mammals captured at firing point 10 (FP-10) and firing point 60 (FP-60), Gyeonggi Province, near the demilitarized zone, Republic of Korea (ROK), from 2001 to 2005. We used these data, combined with the partial M segment amplified from HTNV recovered from lung tissues of Apodemus agrarius, to clarify the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships among HTNV strains in the ROK. Of the eight species of rodents and one insectivore species captured, A. agrarius accounted for 93.4% and 88.5% at FP-10 and FP-60, respectively. Only two species of rodents, A. agrarius and Micromys minutus, were HTNV Ab+. The overall HTNV Ab+ prevalence for A. agrarius captured at FP-10 and FP-60 was 23.3% (121/520) and 14.5% (94/647), respectively. The hantaviral reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction-positive rate of Ab+ A. agrarius was 74.2% (167/215), and the phylogenetic trees, based on the 269-nucleotide G2-encoding M segment, demonstrated that HTNV strains from FP-10 and FP-60 were distantly segregated from HTNV of other geographic regions in Korea and China. These data are useful in the development of risk reduction strategies for the prevention of hantavirus infections among military personnel, especially during training or the event of hostilities, and civilian populations.