Sindbis virus is widely and continuously found in insects and vertebrates in Eurasia, Africa, and Oceania.

Clinical infection and disease in humans however has almost only been reported from Northern Europe (Finland, Sweden, Russian Karelia), where SINV is endemic and where large outbreaks occur intermittently.

[4] SINV is an arbovirus, it is arthropod-borne, and it is maintained in nature by transmission between vertebrate (bird) hosts and invertebrate (mosquito) vectors.

Sindbis viruses are enveloped particles with an icosahedral capsid, with a positive single stranded RNA genome, with an approximate size of 11.7 kb.

A non-coding RNA element has been found to be essential for Sindbis virus genome replication.