Abstract:
In Mozambique rotavirus (RV) was shown to
be the greatest cause of acute diarrhoea in infants from 0
to 11 months, and in 2015, national rotavirus vaccination
was introduced. As with other developing countries, there
is very limited active strain characterisation. Rotavirus positive
clinical specimens, collected between 2012 and 2013,
have now provided information on the genotypes circulating
in southern Mozambique prior to vaccine introduction.
Genotypes G2 (32.4%), G12 (28.0%), P[4] (41.4%) and
P[6] (22.9%) (n = 157) strains were commonly detected
with G2P[4] (42.3%) RVs being predominant, specifically
during 2013. Phylogenetic evaluation of the VP7 and VP8* encoding genes showed, for the majority of the Mozambican
strains, that they clustered with other African strains based
on genotype. RVA/Human-wt/MOZ/0153/2013/G2P[4],
RVA/Human-wt/MOZ/0308/2012/G2P[4] and RVA/Humanwt/
MOZ/0288/2012/G12P[8] formed separate clusters from
the other Mozambican strains with similar genotypes, suggesting
possible reassortment. Amino acid substitutions
in selected epitope regions also supported phylogenetic
clustering. As expected, the VP7 and VP8* genes from
the Mozambican strains differed from both the RotaTeq
®
(SC2-9) G2P[5] and Rotarix
® (A41CB052A) G1P[8] genes.
This study provides information on the genetic diversity of
rotavirus strains prior to vaccine introduction and generates
baseline data for future monitoring of any changes in rotavirus
strains in response to vaccine pressure.
