Genomic characterisation of human monkeypox virus in Nigeria

Monkeypox virus (MPXV) is a large, double-stranded DNA virus belonging to the Orthopox genus in the family Poxviridae. First identified in 1958, MPXV has caused sporadic human outbreaks in central and west Africa, with a mortality rate between 1% and 10%.1 Viral genomes from west Africa and the Congo Basin separate into two clades, the latter being more virulent.2 Recently, MPXV outbreaks have occurred in Sudan (2005), the Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo (2009), and the Central African Republic (2016).3 A suspected outbreak of human MPXV was reported to WHO on Sept 26, 2017, by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) after a cluster of suspected cases had occurred in Yenagoa Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.4 Since the onset of the outbreak, 155 cases have been reported by the NCDC, of which 56 were confirmed.4 A subset of these samples was sent to the WHO Collaborating Center at the Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) in Senegal for confirmation by PCR