Mobility oflarge parts of the human population, whether related to commercial necessity, touristic activities or to migration induced by war and social pressure, carried and carries the risk of spreading infections. Modem air travel effectively circumvents existing quarantine regulations as infected individuals thereby can reach almost every geographic location while stiIl in the incubation phase of the disease. Hence, infections previously restricted to distinet regions due to their strict association with non-human reservoirs or vectors can suddenly surface in non-endemic areas where...

I. Introduction Parvoviruses belong to the large group of viral agents of which virologists have become aware by chance in many biological materials due to the availabil ity of more sensitive isolation techniques and the extensive use of the electron microscope. In general, many of these viruses lacked the stimulating background of an infectious disease and, therefore, have fallen into oblivion already soon after discovery. In case of parvoviruses, however, interest has been maintained because of the circumstances under which most of them were isolated. A great number of parvoviruses has been...