Report of East-Central South African Chikungunya virus genotype during the 2016 outbreak in the Alagoas State, Brazil

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes a self-limiting disease characterized by the onset of fever, skin rash and persistent arthralgia. In the last decade, it has emerged as a serious public health problem causing several outbreaks around the world. Here, we report the CHIKV genotype characterization during the 2016 CHIKV outbreak in Alagoas State, Brazil. Partial E1 sequence from CHIKV-positive samples coming from different cities of Alagoas were submitted to DNA sequencing followed by phylogenetic analysis thus characterizing the virus genotype. The circulating CHIKV virus in Alagoas during 2016 outbreak belongs to the East-Central South African genotype. In this way, virus genotyping to monitoring the spread of CHIKV is needed to continued surveillance supporting the development of prevention strategies, mainly in endemic areas of mosquitoes and arboviruses co-circulation.