RESERVOIR: The principal reservoirs of Junin virus are Calomys musculinus , and Calomys laucha(1,3,4,8,9,10,12,13,14).

It is caused by the Junín virus (an arenavirus, closely related to the Machupo virus, causative agent of Bolivian hemorrhagic fever).

PATHOGENICITY/TOXICITY: Most infections with Junin virus (80%) result in clinical disease(4).

SPECIAL HAZARDS: Centrifugation of virus infected samples is considered the most dangerous of all laboratory manipulations involving Junin virus(10).

CHARACTERISTICS: Junin virus is a member of the family Arenaviridae, genus Arenavirus , and belongs to the Tacaribe complex (New World arenaviruses)(1).

Finally, there is a real health risk, particularly infectious diseases and diseases transmitted by insect bites (dengue, malaria, Nile virus) or bites of rats (hantavirus, Junin virus) and snakes.

VECTORS: None – although mites have been suggested, but not been proven, to act as an arthropod vector of Junin virus(1,13).

EPIDEMIOLOGY: Junin virus is endemic to the fertile farming plain of central Argentina, known as the "humid pampas"(12).

Other techniques such as IgM and IgG ELISA, antigen detection ELISA and neutralisation tests are also frequently used to detect Junin virus(3,9,11,14,15).

The disease was first detected in the 1950s in the Junín Partido in Buenos Aires, after which its agent, the Junín virus, was named upon its identification in 1958.