We report West Nile virus (WNV) RNA in urine collected from a patient with encephalitis 8 days after symptom onset. Viral RNA was detected by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Sequence and phylogenetic analysis confirmed the PCR product to have > or = 99% similarity to the WNV strain NY 2000-crow3356.
Asia Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, Hawaii 96816, USA. jtonry@rocketmail.com