Experimental transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus by<i>Culex tritaeniorhynchus</i>and<i>C. fuscocephalus</i>

Abstract

Experimental transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus from swine to baby chicks was accomplished using Culex tritaeniorhynchus and Culex fuscocephalus, two of three mosquito species in Taiwan from which the virus has been recovered in nature. Whereas neither species had become infective by the twelfth day, one of ten C. fuscocephalus and 11 of 51 C. tritaeniorhynchus were infective by the seventeenth day of extrinsic incubation as verified by viraemia in chicks fed upon by potentially infective mosquitoes. The highest transmission rate obtained was 81% for C. tritaeniorhynchus on the twenty-first day of extrinsic incubation.