Publicaties

During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing was widely used to limit virus propagation and implement targeted disease control measures. It can however be difficult to assess whether infected cases are actually linked to the traced index case. In this study, we developed and applied an analytical pipeline using genomic data to assess the precision of contact tracing, defined as the proportion of transmission events suggested by contact tracing ...

Bread is a major source of carbohydrates in Europe, and whole meal varieties may offer better metabolic responses and increased satiety than white bread. We compared the effects of three types of whole meal bread: whole meal yeast bread (WYB), whole meal sourdough bread (WSB), and whole meal sourdough and yeast bread (WSYB), on appetite regulation and metabolic outcomes in healthy subjects. The sourdough contained Fructilactobacillus ...

BACKGROUND: Filoviruses, including Ebola and Marburg viruses, cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and primates. These viruses pose significant threats to public health, making rapid and sensitive detection critical for controlling outbreaks. We developed and validated a hemi-nested generic PanFilo assay to detect all Ebola virus species, Marburg viruses, and recently discovered bat filoviruses. This assay was deployed to 15 European ...

In April 2024, following the annual International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) ratification vote on newly proposed taxa, the phylum Negarnaviricota was expanded by 1 new order, 1 new family, 6 new subfamilies, 34 new genera and 270 new species. One class, two orders and six species were renamed. Seven families and 12 genera were moved; ten species were renamed and moved; and nine species were abolished. This article presents the ...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a common complication in newborns with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). Prolonged antiviral treatment in immunocompromised patients increases the risk of the emergence of drug resistance. We analyzed drug resistance in a newborn with SCID who developed neonatal CMV infection. Sequencing of viral DNA polymerase (DP; UL54), protein kinase (UL97), and terminase (UL51, UL56, UL89) genes identified ...

BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection poses a significant risk to immunosuppressed transplant recipients, manifesting through primary infection, reinfection, or reactivation. METHODS: We analyzed the emergence of drug resistance in CMV infection in 3 patients who were later found to have received an allograft from a shared, deceased donor. The seronegative transplant recipients developed symptomatic CMV infections after bowel/pancreas, ...

In 2022, the World Health Organization declared the worldwide outbreak of mpox to be a public health emergency of international concern. The causative monkeypox virus (MPXV) belonged to clade IIb and is transmitted through sexual contact with a low case fatality rate (0.1%), which, together with under-detection, all contributed to a rapid global spread particularly within the MSM (men who have sex with men) community. As MPXV clade II remains ...

Understanding the dispersal patterns of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) lineages is crucial to public health decision-making, especially in countries with limited access to viral genomic sequencing. This study provides a comprehensive epidemiological and phylodynamic perspective on SARS-CoV-2 lineage dispersal in Iran from February 2020 to July 2022. We explored the genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 combining 1281 ...

Since late 2020, the emergence of variants of concern (VOCs) of SARS-CoV-2 has been of concern to public health, researchers and policymakers. Mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome-for which clear evidence is available indicating a significant impact on transmissibility, severity and/or immunity-illustrate the importance of genomic surveillance and monitoring the evolution and geographic spread of novel lineages. Lineage B.1.619 was first detected ...

BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of May 2022, cases of mpox have been reported in several European and American countries where the disease is nonendemic. We performed a retrospective genomic characterisation of the 2022 mpox outbreak in Belgium, and assessed the in vitro sensitivity of three antiviral compounds to a monkeypox virus (MPXV) strain from the 2022 outbreak. METHODS: We sequenced the complete genomes of MPXV isolated from skin-, ...