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Between 2011 and 2013, three older men from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, developed — and died from — progressive encephalitis, the cause of which was not defined by routine laboratory studies. Efforts to explain the illnesses expanded after the men died.
The three patients were friends who had bred variegated squirrels and had exchanged their squirrel breeding pairs several times in the past. All had developed symptoms, including fever and progressive psychomotor slowing, and died 2 to 4 months later. All had suffered bilateral crural-vein thrombosis. Postmortem examination of the affected brain regions, including the cortical areas, basal ganglia, and brainstem, revealed tissue edema, necrosis, glial activation, and lymphocyte infil…