Molecular phylogenomic analysis reveals a single origin of monkeypox virus transmission in Guangzhou, China in June 2023

The monkeypox (mpox) virus has caused worldwide transmission since its initial report in England in early May 2022. Available data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that Europe and the Americas experienced a huge wave of mpox virus infection. Now the number of infected cases is on the rise in Asia. Several sporadic infections have been reported in China. In this study, we obtained high-quality whole viral genomic sequences using a mpox virus-specific amplicon-based sequencing strategy. Our analysis of the phylogenomic characteristics indicated that all eight mpox virus sequences from Guangzhou belonged to the clade IIb lineage B.1.3 cluster. However, we could not locate the exact origins where the virus was imported, based on all the available mpox virus sequences from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) database (https://gisaid.org/), except for their closest sequence similarity to that was reported from Japan. Novel amino acid mutations were found among the eight cases, suggesting that a local transmission may have occurred in Guangzhou, China.