Development of a Real-Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction for O’nyong-nyong Virus and Evaluation with Clinical and Mosquito Specimens from Kenya

Jesse Waggoner Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia;

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Claire Jane Heath Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California;

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Bryson Ndenga Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kisumu, Kenya;

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Francis Mutuku Technical University of Mombasa, Mombasa, Kenya;

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Malaya K. Sahoo Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California;

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Alisha Mohamed-Hadley Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California;

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John Vulule Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kisumu, Kenya;

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Dunstan Mukoko Ministry of Health, Nairobi, Kenya;

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A. Desiree LaBeaud Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California;

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Benjamin A. Pinsky Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California;
Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

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O’nyong-nyong virus (ONNV), an alphavirus closely related to chikungunya virus (CHIKV), has been the documented cause of two large outbreaks in east Africa; however, little is known about the contribution of ONNV to cases of acute febrile illness during interepidemic periods. An ONNV real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) was developed and evaluated using clinical and mosquito pool samples. The ONNV rRT-PCR linear range extended from 8.0 to 2.0 log10 copies/μL, and the lower limit of 95% detection was 22.4 copies/μL. No cases of ONNV infection were identified in serum from 385 Kenyan children who presented with an acute febrile illness. Additionally, ONNV was not detected in 120 mosquito pools collected in coastal and western Kenya. The ONNV rRT-PCR demonstrated good analytical sensitivity when performed in monoplex or as a component of an ONNV–CHIKV duplex assay. This assay should provide a useful diagnostic for the detection of ONNV in surveillance studies.

Author Notes

Address correspondence to Benjamin A. Pinsky, Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 3375 Hillview Avenue, Room 2913, Palo Alto, CA 94304. E-mail: bpinsky@stanford.edu

Financial support: Research was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants K08AI110528 (JJW) and R01AI102918 (ADL). Funds for assay development were also provided by a Robert E. Shope International Fellowship in Infectious Diseases, distributed by the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Authors’ addresses: Jesse Waggoner, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, E-mail: jesse.j.waggoner@emory.edu. Claire Jane Heath, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, E-mail: claireejane@gmail.com. Bryson Ndenga, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kisian Campus, Kisumu, Kenya, E-mail: bndenga@yahoo.com. Francis Mutuku, Environmental Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, and CWRU/DVBNTD, Diani, Kenya, E-mail: fmutuku73@gmail.com. Malaya K. Sahoo and Alisha Mohamed-Hadley, Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, E-mails: mksahoo@stanford.edu and alisha.mohamedhadley@gmail.com. John Vulule, Center for Global Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Biomedical Sciences, Kisumu, Kenya, E-mail: jvulule@gmail.com. Dunstan Mukoko, Vector Borne Disease Control Unit, Vector Borne Disease Control Unit, Nairobi, Kenya, E-mail: dunstan.mukoko29@gmail.com. A. Desiree LaBeaud, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, E-mail: dlabeaud@stanford.edu. Benjamin A. Pinsky, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, E-mail: bpinsky@stanford.edu.

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