Real-time Metagenomic Analysis of Undiagnosed Fever Cases Unveils a Yellow Fever Outbreak in Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

We report here the use of metagenomic sequencing to identify and characterize yellow fever virus (YFV) in a cluster of undiagnosed febrile patients from Edo State, Nigeria. Yellow fever, an acute mosquito-borne viral haemorrhagic fever, re-emerged in Nigeria in 2017 after decades of relative control.1 Once a major public health concern in the region,2 the prolonged absence of yellow fever has left a gap in knowledge about circulating virus and lowered clinical suspicion for a disease whose spectrum overlaps with endemic infections (e.g., malaria and Lassa fever). In this context, metagenomic sequencing can be a powerful tool for identifying and tracking pathogens causing infectious disease.3\n\nPlasma samples from thirteen epidemiologically-linked patients with unexplained, often fatal, fever were sent from Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital to the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of ...