Isolation and Quantification of Mimivirus-Like and Marseillevirus-Like Viruses from Soil Samples in An Aboriginal (Orang asli) Village in Peninsular Malaysia.

Background: The giant amoebal viruses of Mimivirus and Marseillevirus are large DNA viruses and have been documented in water, soil, and sewage samples. The trend of discovering these giant amoebal viruses has been increasing throughout Asia with Japan, India, and Saudi Arabia being the latest countries to document the presence of these viruses. To date, there have been no reports of large amoebal viruses being isolated in South East Asia.