Jansen van Vuren, PetrusWiley, Michael R.Palacios, GustavoStorm, NadiaMarkotter, WandaBirkhead, MonicaKemp, AlanPaweska, Janusz Tadeusz2018-02-082018-02-082017-05Jansen van Vuren, P., Wiley, M.R., Palacios, G. et al. 2017, 'Isolation of a novel orthobunyavirus from bat flies (Eucampsipoda africana)', Journal of General Virology, vol. 98, no. 5, pp. 935-945.0022-1317 (print)1465-2099 (online)10.1099/jgv.0.000753http://hdl.handle.net/2263/63899The Bunyaviridae family comprises viruses causing diseases of public and veterinary health importance, including viral haemorrhagic and arboviral fevers. We report the isolation, identification and genome characterization of a novel orthobunyavirus, named Wolkberg virus (WBV), from wingless bat fly ectoparasites (Eucampsipoda africana) of Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) in South Africa. Complete genome sequence data of WBV suggests it is most closely related to two bat viruses (Mojuí dos Campos and Kaeng Khoi viruses) and an arbovirus (Nyando virus) previously shown to infect humans. WBV replicates to high titres in VeroE6 and C6-36 cells, characteristic of mosquito-borne arboviruses. These findings expand our knowledge of the diversity of orthobunyaviruses and their insect vector host range.en© 2017 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Pathogen discoveryEucampsipoda africanaBat fliesOrthobunyavirusBunyaviridaeEgyptian fruit batRousettus aegyptiacusArticle