Phylogeography of rubella virus in Asia: Vaccination and demography shape synchronous outbreaks

Abstract

Highlights Metapopulation dynamics contribute to rubella persistence in East/Southeast Asia. Circulation patterns differ between rubella viral genotypes 1E and 2B. China serves as a regional source population and Japan acts as a regional sink. India does not have strong epidemiological links to East/Southeast Asia. Taiwan may act as an important sentinel for regional rubella activity.

Rubella epidemiology in the Central African Republic, 2015-2016 and molecular characterization of virus strains from 2008-2016

“…Our findings suggest that genotypes 1G and 1E were present in CAF during the early years of the studied time range, while 2B strains, potentially imported from Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they were found already in 2012 (Bankamp et al, 2019), became predominant from 2014 on. Further studies are required to determine whether a genotype replacement occurred, as described from China (Bozick et al, 2019). The currently scarce genotype information from the different HR does not allow any conclusions as far as regional differences related to rubella virus genotypes within CAF are concerned.…”

Phylogenetic analysis of congenital rubella virus from Indonesia: a case report

“…The campaign was launched in August–September 2017 in Java and August–September 2018 for other regions (outside Java). Before the campaign, Genotype 1E was the most prominent rubella genotype that circulated throughout Indonesia [ 18 ] and formed an outbreak in multiple countries in Asia [ 19 ]. However, this viral isolate has never been submitted to GenBank.…”

Identifying geographic areas at risk of rubella epidemics in Japan using seroepidemiological data

“…Additionally, to obtain the specific countries from which the travelers came, the number of annual visitors was retrieved from the Statistics of Visitor Arrivals, which is reported by the Japan National Tourism Organization (Japan National Tourism Organization, 2017). In a published phylogeographic study of rubella in Asia, international human mobility in East and South East Asia was characterized as contributing to the importation of the rubella virus to Japan for strains that had not continuously circulated in Japan (Bozick et al, 2019). For this reason, we focused on incoming travelers from the following eight different countries: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.…”