Detection of arboviruses in mosquitoes: Evidence of circulation of chikungunya virus in Iran.

• Published in: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: Hasan Bakhshi, Laurence Mousson, Sara Moutailler, Marie Vazeille, Géraldine Piorkowski, Sedigheh Zakeri, Abbasali Raz, Xavier de Lamballerie, Navid Dinparast-Djadid, Anna-Bella Failloux
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020
• Subjects: Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic; Human health
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0008135; https://doaj.org/article/6f3e327b674e4c86ba0d2ffc20079fff

Mosquitoes are vectors of viruses affecting animal and human health. In Iran, the prevalence of mosquito-borne viruses remains poorly investigated. Once infected, mosquito females remain infected for all their life making virus detections possible at early steps before infections are reported in vertebrate hosts. In this study, we used a recently developed high-throughput chip based on the BioMark Dynamic arrays system capable of detecting 37 arboviruses in a single experiment. A total of 1,212 mosquitoes collected in Mazandaran, North-Khorasan, and Fars provinces of Iran were analyzed. Eighteen species were identified, belonging to five genera; the most prevalent species were Anopheles maculipennis s.l. (42.41%), Culex pipiens (19.39%), An. superpictus (11.72%), and Cx. tritaeniorhynchus (10.64%). We detected chikungunya virus (CHIKV) of the Asian genotype in six mosquito pools collected in North Khorasan and Mazandaran provinces. To our knowledge, this is the first report of mosquitoes infected with CHIKV in Iran. Our high-throughput screening method can be proposed as a novel epidemiological surveillance tool to identify circulating arboviruses and to support preparedness to an epidemic in animals and humans.