The virus that causes Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a single-stranded RNA virus in the family Togaviridae, genus Alphavirus. It is endemic in North America but only causes a few cases each year in the United States. EEE is spread by Culiseta melanura mosquitoes, which feed primarily on birds. Horses and people are considered "dead-end" hosts because the amount of virus in their blood is too small to infect mosquitoes.
The life cycle occurs in swampy areas near hardwood forests. People are not common inhabitants of this habitat, so case numbers are small. Symptomatic infection is mostly seen in people under the age of 15 and over 50. Most cases are seen in the Atlantic, Great Lakes, and Gulf Coast regions.
Figure 27. Transmission of eastern equine encephalitis virus. (2024). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/eastern-equine-encephalitis/php/transmission/index.htmlFigure 28. Public health domain. (1968). Image #7057. Under a magnification of 83,900X, this digitally colorized transmission electron microscopic (TEM) image depicts a salivary gland tissue section that had been extracted from a mosquito, which was infected by the eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus. The viral particles have been colorized red. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://phil.cdc.gov/Details.aspx?pid=7057
