In the municipality of Maitenbeth in the district of Mühldorf, where two people have died of infections with the very rare Borna virus in the past three years, apparently no other people have had contact with the dangerous pathogen. This is the result of a study by the University of Regensburg and the State Office for Health and Food Safety presented on Tuesday. 679 Maitenbether took part, around 40 percent of all adults in the village.
There was no evidence of the virus in either blood samples or nasal swabs. This is completely different with six of 16 field shrews found, which were examined in parallel by experts from the Friedrich Loeffler Institute. The mouse species has long been considered a carrier of the Borna virus. The possibility of transmission to humans, in which the virus can lead to mostly fatal meningitis, has been known since 2018. There was also no evidence of the virus in other mouse species examined.