Nile Virus Detected in Sevilla Confirmed as False Positive

THE first case of the Nile Virus detected this year in Andalucia has finally turned out to be a false positive, as health sources have stated.

As reported by La Opinion de Malaga, sources have indicated that, finally, the 35-year-old man from Dos Hermanas, Sevilla, who entered the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Sevilla on June 12 does not suffer from the Nile Virus derived from the mosquito bite that last year caused 77 cases of serious illness and seven deaths in Andalucia.

The patient was admitted on June 12 with symptoms compatible with Covid-19 and was referred to the ICU of the Sevilla hospital, after confirming that he was positive for Covid. Two days later he began to suffer “neuromeningeal” symptoms that can occur in Covid cases, and that led the hospital to perform a test with cerebrospinal fluid from the patient, who tested positive for meningoencephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain, with then clear indications of it being Nile Virus.

On June 16, the results were sent to the reference centre in Andalucia, located in the Virgen de las Nieves Hospital in Granada, accompanied by serum and urine samples from the patient, where specific tests for Nile Virus were negative, and the results and samples were then referred to the National Microbiology Centre, located in Majadahonda in Madrid, where the negative result was repeated.

The information has been sent to the European Infectious Disease Control Centre, based in Stockholm, Sweden, an organisation that would have been in charge of activating the health alert in the event of a positive result, and which already has it for information.
The sources consulted have indicated that false positives with viruses are not strange, and in this case, it has also been mixed with the presence of the coronavirus that causes Covid in the same patient.