The widespread use of the oral poliovaccine from Sabin strains (tOPV) radically reduced poliomyelitis incidence worldwide. However, OPV became a source of neurovirulent vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs). Currently, circulating type 2 VDPVs (cVDPV2) are the leading cause of poliomyelitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has become a serious challenge for humanity almost everywhere globally. Despite active vaccination around the world, the incidence proportion in different countries varies significantly as of May 2022. The reason may be a combination of demographic, immunological, and epidemiological factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Since its beginnings in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic is still a problem of global medical concern. Southern Vietnam is one of the country's vast regions, including 20 provinces and the densely populated metropolis Ho Chi Minh City. A randomized retrospective study was performed to investigate the epidemiology and genetic diversity of COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe development of fast, cheap and reliable methods to determine seroconversion against infectious agents is of great practical importance. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, an important issue is to study the rate of formation of the immune layer in the population of different regions, as well as the study of the formation of post-vaccination immunity in individuals after vaccination. Currently, the main method for this kind of research is enzyme immunoassay (ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBunyamwera virus is the prototype of the Bunyamwera serogroup, which belongs to the order of the genus in the Peribunyaviridae family. Bunyamwera is a negative-sense RNA virus composed of three segments S, M, and L. Genetic recombination is possible between members of this order as it is already documented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
February 2023
Being diverse and widely distributed globally, bats are a known reservoir of a series of emerging zoonotic viruses. We studied fecal viromes of twenty-six bats captured in 2015 in the Moscow Region and found 13 of 26 (50%) samples to be coronavirus positive. Of (the Nathusius' pipistrelle), 3 of 6 samples were carriers of a novel MERS-related betacoronavirus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNipah virus (NiV) is a zoonotic RNA virus which infects humans and animals in Asian countries. Infection in humans occurs in different forms, from asymptomatic infection to fatal encephalitis, and death occurred in 40-70% of those infected in outbreaks that occurred between 1998 and 2018. Modern diagnostics is carried out by real-time PCR to identify pathogens or by ELISA to detect antibodies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been responsible for over two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and a global health emergency. Genomic surveillance plays a key role in overcoming the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic despite its relative successive waves and the continuous emergence of new variants. Many technological approaches are currently applied for the whole genome sequencing (WGS) of SARS-CoV-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study is a successor of our previous work concerning changes in the chemokine profile in infection that are associated with different SARS-CoV-2 genetic variants. The goal of our study was to take into account both the virus and the host immune system by assessing concentrations of cytokines in patients infected with different SARS-CoV-2 variants (ancestral Wuhan strain, Alpha, Delta and Omicron). Our study was performed on 340 biological samples taken from COVID-19 patients and healthy donors in the timespan between May 2020 and April 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
October 2022
The aggressive infectious nature of SARS-CoV-2, its rapid spread, and the emergence of mutations necessitate investigation of factors contributing to differences in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and severity. The role of genetic variations in the human HLA continues to be studied in various populations in terms of both its effect on morbidity and clinical manifestation of illness. The study included 484 COVID-19 convalescents (northwest Russia residents of St.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFollowing its emergence at the end of 2021, the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant rapidly spread around the world and became a dominant variant of concern (VOC). The appearance of the new strain provoked a new pandemic wave with record incidence rates. Here, we analyze the dissemination dynamics of Omicron strains in Saint Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 mostly affects the upper and lower respiratory tracts and causes symptoms ranging from the common cold to pneumonia with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Chemokines are deeply involved in the chemoattraction, proliferation, and activation of immune cells within inflammation. It is crucial to consider that mutations within the virion can potentially affect the clinical course of SARS-CoV-2 infection because disease severity and manifestation vary depending on the genetic variant.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Bunyamwera serological group includes a number of geographically widespread viruses that are related but not identical and have serological cross-reactivity. As the first group members were obtained in the pre-sequencing era, their classifications (group attribution, species differentiation) were originally based on serological reactions. At the same time, the accuracy of the typing in each case depended on the variety of viruses that the researcher had as a comparison panel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAppearing in Wuhan (China) and quickly spreading across the globe, the novel coronavirus infection quickly became a significant threat to global health. The year 2021 was characterized by both increases and decreases in COVID-19 incidence, and Russia was no exception. In this work, we describe regional features in the Northwestern federal district (FD) of Russia of the pandemic in 2021 based on Rospotrebnadzor statistics and data from SARS-CoV-2 genetic monitoring provided by the Saint Petersburg Pasteur Institute as a part of epidemiological surveillance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this report, we present new data on the diversity and geographical distribution of genetic variants in Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) in Russia. Partial S, M, and L segment sequences of the CCHFV genome were obtained from 500 serum samples from CCHF patients and 103 pools of ticks collected in the south of the European region of Russia in 2007-2017. The investigated viral strains belonged to the lineages Europe 1 (596 samples), Africa 3 (1 sample) and a new genetic lineage, Europe 3 (6 samples).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcute febrile illnesses occur frequently in Guinea. Acute fever itself is not a unique, hallmark indication (pathognomonic sign) of any one illness or disease. In the infectious disease context, fever's underlying cause can be a wide range of viral or bacterial pathogens, including the Ebola virus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic, which began in Wuhan (Hubei, China), has been ongoing for about a year and a half. An unprecedented number of people around the world have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of COVID-19. Despite the fact that the mortality rate for COVID-19 is relatively low, the total number of deaths has currently already reached more than three million and continues to increase due to high incidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWad Medani virus (WMV) belongs to the genus Orbivirus and is a poorly studied arbovirus with unclear medical significance. Presently, a limited number of WMV strains are characterized and available in NCBI GenBank, some isolated many years ago. A new WMV strain was isolated in 2012 from Dermacentor nuttalli ticks collected from sheep in the Tuva Republic, Russia, and sequenced using high-throughput methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become pandemic since March 11, 2020. Thus, development and integration in clinics of fast and sensitive diagnostic tools are essential. The aim of the study is a development and evaluation of a one-step quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay (COVID-19 Amp) for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) detection with an armored positive control and internal controls constructed from synthetic MS2-phage-based RNA particles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article describes a lethal case of leptospirosis that occurred in Southern Russia. The strain was isolated and characterized using a microscopic agglutination test, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, targeted PCR, and high-throughput sequencing. We show that molecular and mass-spectrometry methods can be an alternative to conventional methods of leptospirosis diagnostics and study, which require highly qualified staff and can be performed only at specialized laboratories.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF