Abstract

Dengue is often misclassified and underreported in Africa due to inaccurate differential diagnoses of nonspecific febrile illnesses such as malaria, sparsity of diagnostic testing and poor clinical and genomic surveillance. There are limited reports on the seroprevalence and genetic diversity of dengue virus (DENV) in humans and vectors in Nigeria. In this study, we investigated the epidemiology and genetic diversity of dengue in the rainforest region of Nigeria. We screened 515 febrile patients who tested negative for malaria and typhoid fever in three hospitals in Oyo and Ekiti States in southern Nigeria with a combination of anti-dengue IgG/IgM/NS1 rapid test kits and metagenomic sequencing. We found that approximately 28% of screened patients had previous DENV exposure, with the highest prevalence in persons over sixty. Approximately 8% of the patients showed evidence of recent or current infection, and 2.7% had acute infection. Following sequencing of sixty samples, we assembled twenty DENV-1 genomes (3 complete and 17 partial). We found that all assembled genomes belonged to DENV-1 genotype III. Our phylogenetic analyses showed evidence of prolonged cryptic circulation of divergent DENV lineages in Oyo state. We were unable to resolve the source of DENV in Nigeria owing to limited sequencing data from the region. However, our sequences clustered closely with sequences in Tanzania and sequences reported in Chinese with travel history to Tanzania in 2019. This may reflect the wider unsampled bidirectional transmission of DENV-1 in Africa, which strongly emphasizes the importance of genomic surveillance in monitoring ongoing DENV transmission in Africa.

Details

Title
Whole genome sequencing unravels cryptic circulation of divergent dengue virus lineages in the rainforest region of Nigeria
Author
Bernard Anyebe Onoja 1 ; Judith Uche Oguzie 2 ; Uwem Etop George 2 ; Kaego Emmanuel Asoh 3 ; Ajayi, Philip 1 ; Toluwanimi Faithful Omofaye 3 ; Imafidon Oluwatoyin Igeleke 3 ; Eromon, Philomena 4 ; Soumare Harouna 4 ; Parker, Edyth 5 ; Adekunle Johnson Adeniji 1 ; Happi, Christian T 6 

 Department of Virology, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria 
 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria; African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria 
 Department of Medical Laboratory Science, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, State Nigeria 
 African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria 
 African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria; Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA 
 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria; African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria; Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA 
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Dec 2024
Publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd.
e-ISSN
22221751
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3142112522
Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group, on behalf of Shanghai Shangyixun Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons  Attribution – Non-Commercial License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.