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Since the end of the 1990s, unexplained outbreaks of acute encephalitis in children coinciding with litchi harvesting (May-July) have been documented in the Bac Giang Province in northern Vietnam. A retrospective ecologic analysis of data for 2004-2009 involving environmental, agronomic, and climatic factors was conducted to investigate the suspected association between the outbreaks and litchi harvesting. The clinical, biological, and immunologic characteristics of the patients suggested a viral etiology. The ecologic study revealed an independent association between litchi plantation surface proportion and acute encephalitis incidence: Incidence rate ratios were 1.52 (95% CI 0.90-2.57), 2.94 (95% CI 1.88-4.60), and 2.76 (95% CI 1.76-4.32) for second, third, and fourth quartiles, respectively, compared with the lowest quartile. This ecologic study confirmed the suspected association between incidence of acute encephalitis and litchi plantations and should be followed by other studies to identify the causative agent for this syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While studying the virome of the skin surface of a patient with a Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) by using unbiased, high-throughput sequencing, we identified a human polyomavirus nearly identical to human polyomavirus 9, a virus recently reported in blood and urine of renal transplantion patients and closely related to the African green monkey lymphotropic polyomavirus. Specific PCR analysis further identified this virus in 2/8 patients with MCC but in only 1/111 controls without MCC. This virus was shed for ≥20 months by the MCC index patient and was on the skin of the spouse of the index patient. These results provide information on the viral ecology of human skin and raise new questions regarding the pathology of virus-associated skin disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]