Fort Sherman Virus Infection in Human, Peru, 2020.

Fort Sherman virus (FSV) was isolated in Panama in 1985 from a US soldier. We report a case of human FSV infection in a febrile patient from northern coastal Peru in 2020. FSV infections spanning ≈35 years and a distance of 2,000 km warrant diagnostics, genomic surveillance, and investigation of transmission cycles.

Emergence of Dengue Virus Serotype 2 Cosmopolitan Genotype, Brazil.

We used nanopore sequencing and phylogenetic analyses to identify a cosmopolitan genotype of dengue virus serotype 2 that was isolated from a 56-year-old male patient from the state of Goiás in Brazil. The emergence of a cosmopolitan genotype in Brazil will require risk assessment and surveillance to reduce epidemic potential.

A faster and less costly alternative for RNA extraction of SARS-CoV-2 using proteinase k treatment followed by thermal shock.

One of the biggest challenges during the pandemic has been obtaining and maintaining critical material to conduct the increasing demand for molecular tests. Sometimes, the lack of suppliers and the global shortage of these reagents, a consequence of the high demand, make it difficult to detect and diagnose patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection, negatively impacting the control of virus spread. Many alternatives have enabled the continuous processing of samples and have presented a decrease in time and cost.