Chikungunya and O’nyong-nyong Viruses in Uganda: Implications for Diagnostics

Background. A serosurvey of healthy blood donors provided evidence of hemorrhagic fever and arthropod-borne virus infections in Uganda. Methods. Antibody prevalence to arthropod-borne and hemorrhagic fever viruses in human sera was determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT). Results. The greatest antibody prevalence determined by ELISA was to chikungunya virus (CHIKV) followed in descending order by West Nile virus (WNV), Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV), Ebola virus (EBOV), dengue virus (DEN), yellow fever virus (YFV), Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV), Marburg virus (MARV), and Lassa virus (LASV). Further investigation of CHIKV-positive sera demonstrated that the majority of antibody responses may likely be the result of exposure to the closely related alphavirus o'nyong-nyong virus (ONNV). Conclusions. As the use of highly specific and sensitive polymerase chain reaction-based assays becomes the diagnostic standard without the corresponding use of the less sensitive but more broadly reactive immunological-based assays, emerging and re-emerging outbreaks will be initially missed, illustrating the need for an orthogonal system for the detection and identification of viruses causing disease.