Genomic Characterization of Dengue Virus Outbreak in 2022 from Pakistan

Abstract

AbstractPakistan, a dengue endemic country has encountered several outbreaks during the past decade. The current study aimed to explore the serotype and genomic diversity of dengue virus responsible for the 2022 outbreak in Pakistan. During August-October 2022, blood samples (n=436) were collected from dengue patients, among which 64.4% (n=281) were positive based on RT-PCR. A subset of DENV-2 and DENV-1 samples were further subjected to whole-genome sequencing. In terms of gender and age, dengue infection was more prevalent in male patients (62.9%) with more adults (77.5%) being infected. Moreover, serotyping revealed DENV-2 to be most predominant serotype (64%; n=180), followed by DENV-1 (35.2%; n=99) and DENV-3 (0.35%; n=1). Phylogenetic analysis of sequenced samples indicates that all the samples (n=8) belong to the DENV-2 Cosmopolitan genotype, falling within a single monophyletic clade that is closely related to sequences from China and Singapore in 2018. Dengue virus dynamics reported in the current study warrants large scale genomic surveillance in order to better respond to future outbreaks.