#30 – Dabie Bandavirus: the Tick Virus From Asia

Recorded in Sapporo, this episode is about a virus causing severe disease across Asia: SFTS virus, officially named Dabie bandavirus. It spreads mainly through the Asian longhorned tick, and in rare cases directly between people via blood and bodily fluids. Florian Krammer explains why the fatality rate of 10 to 30 percent is so alarmingly high, why it's almost exclusively older people in rural parts of China, Japan and South Korea who fall ill, and what lies behind the unwieldy name: severe fever with a dramatic drop in blood platelets. There's also a fascinating American relative, Heartland virus, discovered in Missouri in 2009 and now detected in more than a dozen US states. No vaccine exists and the available drugs barely help, which leaves proper tick protection as the only real defence. Meta-analysis of SFTSV epidemiology: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11261768/ SFTSV review paper: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12325320/ Information about Heartland virus from the US CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/heartland-virus/hcp/clinical-diagnosis/index.html Retrospective analysis of the 1996 cluster in Jiangsu: https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0006603 +++++ You can support the podcast via our German Steady page: https://steady.page/virologisch/ Questions, feedback or topic suggestions? Feel free to contact us at: virological@podcastwerkstatt.com +++++ Krammer laboratory information Krammer Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/krammerlab/ Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Science Outreach and Pandemic Preparedness https://soap.lbg.ac.at/ Ignaz Semmelweis Institute https://semmelweisinstitute.ac.at/ +++++ Conflict of interest statement The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has filed patent applications relating to influenza virus vaccines and therapeutics, SARS-CoV-2 serological assays and NDV-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines which name me as inventor. Mount Sinai has spun out a company, CastleVax, to commercialize NDV-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and I am named as co-founder and scientific advisory board member of that company. I have previously consulted for Curevac, Merck, Gritstone, Sanofi, Seqirus, GSK and Pfizer and I am currently consulting for 3rd Rock Ventures (US) and Avimex (Mexico). My laboratory has been collaborating in the past with Pfizer on animal models of SARS-CoV-2 and with GlaxoSmithKline and VIR on the development of influenza virus vaccines and therapeutics and we are currently collaborating with Dynavax, Inspirevax and Inimmune on development of influenza virus vaccines. My work in the on immunity and infectious diseases in the US is supported by the National Institutes of Health, but also by FluLab and Tito’s Handmade Vodka. In the past I have also received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH and the US Department of Defense. My work in Austria is supported by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft and by the Ignaz Semmelweis Institute through the Medical University of Vienna.