Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract ELIC2025364 (Oral 029) | Published: 18 Aug 2025
Abubakar Ojone Woziri1,2,&, Ezra Ayuba1, Asara Mohammed Abdullahi3, Faridah Ibrahim Nasir4, Ashafa Muhammad Aliyu5, Maryam Aminu5, Anyebe Bernard Onoja6, Fatima Jumai Giwa7, Clement Adebajo Meseko8, Paul Habila Mamman1, Beckie Tagbo9,10
1Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 2Africa Centre of Excellence for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Forensic Biotechnology (ACENTDFB), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 3Department of Infectious Diseases, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Shika, Nigeria, 4Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 5Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 6Department of Virology, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria, 7Department of Medical Microbiology, College of Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 8Animal Influenza Division, Infectious and Transboundary Animal Diseases, National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, Nigeria, 9Department of Paediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu state, Nigeria, 10Institute of Molecular Medicine and Infectious Diseases, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu state, Nigeria
&Corresponding author: Abubakar Ojone Woziri,Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Email: woziriabubakar@gmail.com
Received: 22 May 2025, Accepted: 09 Jul 2025, Published: 18 Aug 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Mpox, genetic diversity, virulence, vaccine, Africa
©Abubakar Ojone Woziri et al Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Abubakar Ojone Woziri et al., Genetic diversity and population structure of Mpox virus in Africa: Identifying key targets for vaccine development. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc5):00029. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO5-00029
Mpox (formerly Monkeypox) is fatal disease that is endemic in Africa, with pandemic potential. However, the genetic diversity/evolutionary patterns of Mpox virus remain underexplored. This study aimed to decipher the population genetic structure of Mpox virus and identify key virulence markers with potential as vaccine targets in Africa.
High-quality, near-full-length Mpox genome sequences of African origin (1970 – 2024; N = 251) were retrieved from Nextstrain and NCBI Virus databases between December, 2024 and February, 2025 (Cameroon, n = 11; Central African Republic, n = 45; Côte d’Ivoire, n = 1; Democratic Republic of Congo, n = 54; Egypt, n = 1; Gabon, n = 2; Kenya, n = 1; Liberia, n = 2; Nigeria, n = 122, Sierra Leone, n = 1; South Africa, n = 9; and Sudan, n = 2), and analyzed using high-throughput bioinformatics pipelines to determine nucleotide diversity, reassortments, phylodynamics, and conservation of key vaccine targets.
Among the 944 identified mutations, 935 were polymorphic sites (singleton sites: n = 477; parsimony-informative sites: n = 458), forming 179 haplotypes with a haplotype diversity (Hd) of 0.9954 and nucleotide diversity (Pi) of 0.00232. Additionally, 55 (12.9%) indel haplotypes were identified (indel diversity = 0.775; p < 0.001). The genomes belonged to clades Ia (37.8%), Ib (4.8%), IIa (1.6%), and IIb (55.8%), exhibiting significant intra-clade nucleotide variation and high inter-clade diversity. Furthermore, 34 recombination events were identified across the 251 sequences. Notably, the conservation rates of virulent genes encoding membrane (E8L, H3L, M1R) and envelope (B6R, A35R) proteins were 0% for E8L, H3L, and B6R, and 32.3% and 97.6% for A35R and M1R, respectively.
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