Abstract
In May 2022, several countries reported mpox cases from patients without
history of traveling to endemic areas. France was one of the most
affected European countries. In this study, we described the clinical
characteristics of mpox cases in France, and studied the genetic
diversity of the virus.
Patients diagnosed with mpox infection (qPCR ct<28) between
21th May and 4th July 2022 and
between 16th August and 10thSeptember 2022 were included to this study. Twelve amplicons
corresponding to the most polymorphic regions of the mpox genome and
covering ~30,000 nucleotides were generated and
sequenced using the S5 XL Ion Torrent technology to evaluate the genetic
diversity of mpox sequences.
One hundred and fourty-eight patients were diagnosed with
mpox-infection. 95% were men, 5% transgender (M-to-F), 50% were
taking HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, and 25% were HIV seropositive. One
hundred and sixty-two samples were sequenced and compared to GenBank
sequences. Thirty-two distinct mutational patterns were identified.
Overall, low genetic diversity of mpox sequences was found compared with
pre-epidemic Western-African sequences, with 32 distinct mutational
patterns.
Our results provide a first glance at the mutational landscape of early
mpox 2022 circulating strains in Paris (France).
Keywords: mpox, genetic diversity, sequencing, 2022 outbreak,
phylogenomics, France, co-circulation