Abstract
In May 2022, several countries reported mpox cases from patients without
history of traveling to endemic areas. France was one of the most
affected European countries. In this study, we described the clinical
characteristics of mpox cases in France, and studied the genetic
diversity of the virus. Patients diagnosed with mpox infection (qPCR
ct<28) between 21 th May and 4
th July 2022 and between 16 th
August and 10 th September 2022 were included to this
study. Twelve amplicons corresponding to the most polymorphic regions of
the mpox genome and covering ~30,000 nucleotides were
generated and sequenced using the S5 XL Ion Torrent technology to
evaluate the genetic diversity of mpox sequences. One hundred and
fourty-eight patients were diagnosed with mpox-infection. 95% were men,
5% transgender (M-to-F), 50% were taking HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis,
and 25% were HIV seropositive. One hundred and sixty-two samples were
sequenced and compared to GenBank sequences. Thirty-two distinct
mutational patterns were identified. Overall, low genetic diversity of
mpox sequences was found compared with pre-epidemic Western-African
sequences, with 32 distinct mutational patterns. Our results provide a
first glance at the mutational landscape of early mpox 2022 circulating
strains in Paris (France).