Table 1.

Potential arboviral threats to the Australian blood supply (Adapted from ⁶ ).

Genus	Virus	Major Vectors	Suspected hosts	Distribution in Australasia	Asymptomatic viremia in humans?	Transfusion Transmissibility
Alphavirus	Ross River	Aedes, Culex mosquitoes	Marsupials (particularly macropods)	Australia, PNG+, Pacific Islands	Yes	Unknown — No documented case
	Barmah Forrest	Aedes, Culex mosquitoes	Unknown, possibly marsupials, Birds	Mainland Australia	Unknown	Unknown — No documented case
Flavivirus	Murray Valley encephaliltis	Cx annulirostris	Waterbirds	Northern Australia, occasionally south‐eastern Australia	Unknown	Unknown — No documented case
	Kunjin	Culex mosquitoes	Waterbirds	Northern Australia, occasionally south‐eastern Australia	Unknown	Unknown — No documented case
	Dengue (serotypes 1‐4)	Aa egypti	Humans	Queensland, PNG, Pacific Islands	Yes — recently demonstrated in blood donors for Brazil/Hondurasa	Known — Single documented case in Hong Kongb
	Japanese encephalitis	Culex mosquitoes	Wild and domestic birds and animals (particularly pigs)	Torres Strait Islands, Cape York Peninsula	Unknown	Unknown — No documented case

Notes:

(a) Linnen, JM et al. Dengue viremia in blood donors from Honduras, Brazil and Australia. Transfusion 2008, In Press.

(b) Lin, CK. First documented case of transfusion transmitted dengue virus infection. 23rd NRL Workshop on serology. Melbourne, Australia 2006