Ahead of Print - Molecular Evidence of Human Monkeypox Virus Infection, Sierra Leone - Volume 25, Number 6—June 2019 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC

Ahead of Print - Molecular Evidence of Human Monkeypox Virus Infection, Sierra Leone - Volume 25, Number 6—June 2019 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC

Volume 25, Number 6—June 2019

Research Letter

Molecular Evidence of Human Monkeypox Virus Infection, Sierra Leone

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Fei Ye1, Jingdong Song1, Li Zhao1, Yi Zhang, Lianxu Xia, Lingwei Zhu, Idrissa Laybohr Kamara, Jiao Ren, Wenling Wang, Houwen Tian, Guizhen Wu, and Wenjie Tan 

Author affiliations: China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China (F. Ye, J. Song, L. Zhao, Y. Zhang, J. Ren, W. Wang, H. Tian, G. Wu, W. Tan); Sierra Leone–China Friendship Biological Safety Laboratory, Freetown, Sierra Leone (F. Ye, J. Song, Y. Zhang, L. Xia, L. Zhu, I.L. Kamara)

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Abstract

Monkeypox virus is a zoonotic disease endemic to Africa. In 2017, we confirmed a case of human monkeypox virus in Sierra Leone by molecular and serologic methods. Sequencing analysis indicated the virus belongs to the West African clade and data suggest it was likely transmitted by wild animals.

Monkeypox virus (MPXV), of the genus Orthopoxvirus, was identified in captive cynomolgus monkeys in Copenhagen in 1958 (1). The first documented case of human MPXV infection was reported in a patient from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1971 (2). Other outbreaks have occurred, including a large one in the United States in 2003, in which 47 confirmed and probable human cases of MPXV infection were identified after importation of wild rodents from Ghana (3). Phylogenetic analyses of MPXVs have revealed 2 distinct clades, West African and Congo Basin (4). In the past decade, human MPXV infections also have increased in Central and West Africa (5).

Ecologic niche modeling shows that Sierra Leone is in a geographic region suitable for transmission of MPXV (6). Several cases of human MPXV have been detected in West Africa, including a case in Sierra Leone in 1970 and another in March 2014 (5). We report confirmation of an MPXV infection in Sierra Leone in March 2017.