Emerg Infect Dis. 2024 Aug;30(8):1642-1650. doi: 10.3201/eid3008.230876.
Rabies, a viral disease that causes lethal encephalitis, kills ≈59,000 persons worldwide annually, despite availability of effective countermeasures. Rabies is endemic in Kenya and is mainly transmitted to humans through bites from rabid domestic dogs. We analyzed 164 brain stems collected from rabid animals in western and eastern Kenya and evaluated the phylogenetic relationships of rabies virus (RABV) from the 2 regions. We also analyzed RABV genomes for potential amino acid changes in the vaccine antigenic sites of nucleoprotein and glycoprotein compared with RABV vaccine strains commonly used in Kenya. We found that RABV genomes from eastern Kenya overwhelmingly clustered with the Africa-1b subclade and RABV from western Kenya clustered with Africa-1a. We noted minimal amino acid variances between the wild and vaccine virus strains. These data confirm minimal viral migration between the 2 regions and that rabies endemicity is the result of limited vaccine coverage rather than limited efficacy.
狂犬病是一种病毒性疾病,会导致致命的脑炎,每年在全球范围内导致 ≈59000 人死亡,尽管有有效的对策。肯尼亚狂犬病流行,主要通过狂犬病家养犬的咬伤传播给人类。我们分析了来自肯尼亚西部和东部的 164 例患有狂犬病的动物的脑干,并评估了来自这两个地区的狂犬病病毒 (RABV) 的系统发育关系。我们还分析了 RABV 基因组中核蛋白和糖蛋白疫苗抗原位点的潜在氨基酸变化,与肯尼亚常用的 RABV 疫苗株进行了比较。我们发现,来自肯尼亚东部的 RABV 基因组绝大多数与非洲-1b 亚分支聚集在一起,而来自肯尼亚西部的 RABV 与非洲-1a 聚集在一起。我们注意到野生和疫苗病毒株之间的氨基酸差异很小。这些数据证实了这两个地区之间病毒迁移很少,狂犬病的流行是由于疫苗接种覆盖率有限,而不是由于效力有限。