Caro-Leiro, Ana , Perez-Crespo, Pedro Maria Martinez , Aguilar-Guisado, Manuela , Oporto, Cristina Roca , Dominguez, Carmen Lozano , Diaz, Laura Merino , Gomez, Reinaldo Espindola , Martin, Elena Rubio , Luque-Ambrosiani, Antonio Cristobal , de Arellano, Encarnacion Ramirez , INFANTE DOMINGUEZ, CARMEN, Macias-Barrera, Maria Carmen , Lepe, Jose Antonio , Gutierrez, Nicolas Merchante , Cisneros, Jose Miguel
No
J. Infect. Public Health
Article
Científica
1
1
01/03/2026
1,65084E+12
Introduction: West Nile Virus (WNV) is becoming a severe problem in Europe. In 2020 and 2024, two unexpected and large outbreaks occurred in southern Spain, with a high rate of West Nile Neuroinvasive Disease (WNND). Objective: The aim of this study is to describe clinical and prognostic features of WNV infection. Materials and methods: Retrospective multicentric cohort study of patients diagnosed with WNV infection in Seville (Spain) between 2020 and 2024. Results: 196 patients, 58.2 % of males, were diagnosed with WNV disease with a median age of 70 (49-78) for WNND and 46 (33-65) for West Nile Fever (WNF). One hundred eight patients (55.1 %) had associated comorbidity, including 22 (11.2 %) immunocompromised patients. 138 (70.4 %) patients required hospital admission with WNND (136, 69.4 %) as the main clinical syndrome, and 33 (16.8 %) were admitted to the ICU. Twenty-five patients (12.7 %) died during their admission; all of these patients had WNND. Twenty-one of the deaths (84 %) were directly related to meningoencephalitis. One hundred (58.5 %) of the survivors had sequelae at discharge. Conclusion: In Spain, the first two large and unexpected outbreaks of WNV infection occurred in 2020 and 2024, resulting in high morbidity and mortality. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
West Nile (WNV); Culex; West Nile Fever (WNF); One Health; West Nile Neuroinvasive Disease (WNND)