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Prevalence and Phylogenetic Analysis of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus in Ticks from Different Ecosystems in Xinjiang, China

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Virologica Sinica

Abstract

The Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), a member of the genus Orthonairovirus and family Nairoviridae, is transmitted by ticks and causes severe hemorrhagic disease in humans. To study the epidemiology of CCHFV in different ecosystems in Xinjiang, China, a total of 58,932 ticks were collected from Tarim Basin, Junggar Basin, Tianshan Mountain, and Altai Mountain from 2014 to 2017. Hyalomma asiaticum asiaticum was the dominant tick species in Tarim and Junggar basins, whereas Dermacentor nuttalli and Hyalomma detritum were found in Tianshan Mountain and Altai Mountain, respectively. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction of the CCHFV small (S) genome segment was used for the molecular detection. The CCHFV-positive percentage was 5.26%, 6.85%, 1.94%, and 5.56% in Tarim Basin, Junggar Basin, Tianshan Mountain, and Altai Mountain, respectively. Sequences of the S segment were used for phylogenetic analysis and the results showed that the newly identified CCHFV strains belonged to two clades. Our study confirms that H. asiaticum asiaticum is the major vector of CCHFV in desert habitats which is consistent with previous studies, and also suggests that H. detritum and D. nuttalli are emerging vectors for CCHFV in Xinjiang. Moreover, this study reports the presence of CCHFV in the mountain habitat of Xinjiang for the first time, suggesting that future surveillance of CCHFV should also include mountainous areas.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2013FY113500), the grants from the National Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81460303, 81760365), and Funded by the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Virology of China (No. 2015IOV003).

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SRS, FD, YJZ and ZHH designed the experiments. AM and CCC carried out the experiments. YJZ, XHY, TL and CW collected the samples. RG, SS and YFZ provided experimental and sequence analysis support. SRS and YJZ analyzed the data. AM and SRS wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Yujiang Zhang, Fei Deng or Surong Sun.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Moming, A., Yue, X., Shen, S. et al. Prevalence and Phylogenetic Analysis of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus in Ticks from Different Ecosystems in Xinjiang, China. Virol. Sin. 33, 67–73 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12250-018-0016-3

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