Marburg virus sequence from Guinea, 2021

posted on behalf of Dr N’Faly Magassouba

On 6 August 2021, the Ministry of Health of Guinea informed WHO of a confirmed case of Marburg virus disease (MVD) in Guéckédou Prefecture, Nzérékoré Region, south-western Guinea: Marburg virus disease - Guinea. The virus was sequenced in the National Reference Laboratory in Conakry (Laboratoire des Fièvres Hémorragiques de Guinée, LFHG) using metagenomic MinION technology. The virus genome sequence was recovered to 99.3%. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the 2021 Guinean Marburg virus was related to strains from the 2004-2005 Marburg virus outbreak in Angola, and together, they are related to Marburg virus sequences obtained from bats in Sierra Leone (2017/18).


Figure 1: Phylogeny of MARV and RAVV sequences. The new strain is indicated in red, the 2004-2005 Angola lineage in purple, and the bat viruses from Sierra Leone in blue.

Figure 2: Phylogeny of MARV sequences. The new strain is represented by a red branch. Taxa names are colored according to African region of sampling. Internal node sizes are proportional to posterior support values.

The genome data is available here: https://github.com/PFHVG/MARVsequencing

DISCLAIMER
The unpublished sequences are shared via the website virological.org under the following conditions: The Marburg virus sequences from Guinea are shared by the Laboratoire des Fièvres Hémorragiques de Guinée, Conakry, Guinée, to support the public health response as well as the development and evaluation of Marburg virus disease diagnostics and therapeutics. The data may be used and analyzed for these purposes. We are preparing a scientific publication of the data. In the meantime, this post may be cited. If you intend to use the sequences for publication prior to our own publication, please contact us directly.

Dr. Magassouba N’Faly < [email protected]>, Director of the Laboratoire des Fièvres Hémorragiques de Guinée (LFHG), Conakry, Guinea.

The sequencing work at the LFHG is supported by WHO GOARN, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), Hamburg, Germany, and other technical partners.

Technical partners are represented by Prof. Stephan Günther [email protected], WHO Collaborating Centre for Arboviruses and Hemorrhagic Fever Reference and Research at BNITM.