EVA

Department of Viral Encephalitis and Arbovirus, National Institute of Viral Diseases Control and Prevention, China CDC is the national center for viral encephalitis (Japanese Encephalitis and Rabies) detection and surveillance and has acted as the WHO-Japanese Encephalitis Regional Reference Laboratory (WHO-JE-RRL, China) since 2009. The professional work concerned viral encephalitis focused on etiology research, development and evaluation of diagnostic methods and reagents, dealing with emergency epidemics, providing technical training and guidance for the appropriate professional agencies and local CDC.

The Department of Viral Encephalitis and Arbovirus performs extensive research on the discovery of encephalitic viruses. So far, the Department has already isolated more than 200 strains of Japanese Encephalitis Virus from hundreds of thousands of insect and human samples and more than 20 strains of Rabies virus from over 10,000 samples. In addition, the Department performs molecular virology and bioinformatics analyses to provide the recommendations and advisory information for government on the viral encephalitis prevention and control on the basis of isolated viruses. Also, the Department is responsible for the professional work concerned with arbovirus surveillance in mainland China. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of vectors (mosquitoes, ticks and midges), animals (bats, mice, pigs, cows, sheep and rabbits), serum samples of acute phase cases of fever and encephalitis were collected from each province. Hundreds of arbovirus isolates were obtained from these specimens.

In recent years, the Department of Viral Encephalitis and Arbovirus has contributed arbovirus stocks to US CDC, and the WHO Collaborating Center Reference Collection. As the WHO Japanese encephalitis (JE) regional reference laboratory, the Department also contribute serum specimens related to Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) infection to WHO for the preparation of proficiency panels for detection of IgM antibodies to JEV. In addition, as the leader at national level, the Department has distributed proficiency panels and diagnostic reagents to provincial labs, such as in-house ELISA kits and primers for PCR together with protocols, etc. The Department also shared viruses, reagents and protocols with other partners at the domestic level, such as universities, Chinese Academy of Science, etc.

The Department of Viral Encephalitis and Arbovirus, as a partner of the EVAg project, would like contribute the resources to all the partners under the frame of EVAg project to perform related studies. These resources include share of the virus stocks of 30 species which belong to 10 genus and 8 families, as well as the derived products such as viral RNA/cDNA, detection reagents, and related standard methods regarding to virus isolation and identification, serological and molecular biological detection, and standard protocols of virus culture, etc. Meanwhile, the basic knowledge and work experience concerning he viruses mentioned above would also be helpful for the EVAg and can be shared with all partners.