Viruses (Nov 2020)

First Phylogenetic Analysis of Malian SARS-CoV-2 Sequences Provides Molecular Insights into the Genomic Diversity of the Sahel Region

  • Bourema Kouriba,
  • Angela Dürr,
  • Alexandra Rehn,
  • Abdoul Karim Sangaré,
  • Brehima Y. Traoré,
  • Malena S. Bestehorn-Willmann,
  • Judicael Ouedraogo,
  • Asli Heitzer,
  • Elisabeth Sogodogo,
  • Abderrhamane Maiga,
  • Mathias C. Walter,
  • Fee Zimmermann,
  • Roman Wölfel,
  • Markus H. Antwerpen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v12111251
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 11
p. 1251

Abstract

Read online

We are currently facing a pandemic of COVID-19, caused by a spillover from an animal-originating coronavirus to humans occurring in the Wuhan region of China in December 2019. From China, the virus has spread to 188 countries and regions worldwide, reaching the Sahel region on 2 March 2020. Since whole genome sequencing (WGS) data is very crucial to understand the spreading dynamics of the ongoing pandemic, but only limited sequencing data is available from the Sahel region to date, we have focused our efforts on generating the first Malian sequencing data available. Screening 217 Malian patient samples for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 resulted in 38 positive isolates, from which 21 whole genome sequences were generated. Our analysis shows that both the early A (19B) and the later observed B (20A/C) clade are present in Mali, indicating multiple and independent introductions of SARS-CoV-2 to the Sahel region.

Keywords