Genome sequencing of Chikungunya virus from the Americas. Chikungunya virus

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus transmitted by a mosquito vector causing acute febrile illness in humans that may be followed by months or years of debilitating joint pain. In 2006 the virus reemerged, causing explosive epidemics across Asia. CHIKV was introduced into the Americas in 2013 and has rapidly spread via transmission by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. As part of this project, we will sequence over 200 strains of CHIKV samples from the Americas using Next-Gen technology obtained from patients with both mild and severe disease symptoms.This will vastly increase the current repertoire of CHIKV genomes from the Americas in the public repositories and help characterize the spatial and temporal evolutionary dynamics of the virus. Through this project, we also aim to determine consensus sequences and quasi species of CHIKV derived from both mosquito pools and clinical samples.