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Varney Manipakeh Kamara
Ph.D. Student
Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology
John A. Burns School of Medicine
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Using a one health approach, we have developed an in-house multiplex microsphere immunoassay to study seroprevalence for antibodies against filovirus, arenavirus, coronavirus, alphavirus and bunyavirus antigens. This assay was employed in serum samples collected from humans, rodents, and dogs, in four Liberian counties: Bong, Lofa, Nimba, and Grand Bassa, collectively known as Lassa virus (LASV) belt. Further, using the same assay we tested human sera collected throughout Liberia during the Liberian Demography Health Survey in 2021. Humans or animals with high reactivities to two or more antigens of the same pathogen were considered as a positive case. Spearman’s correlation of positive samples showed high correlation between antigens of the same pathogen and cross-reactivity with antigens of different viruses from the same viral family. We detected a high seroprevalence of Chikungunya virus, and moderate seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and LASV. The seroprevalence of filovirus in this sample population was low. Interestingly, similar patterns were observed in dogs, suggesting that canines can serve as sentinel animals. In terms of rats, we found high seroreactivities to both LASV glycoprotein and the nucleocapsid protein in the same animal, and across different species of rats, indicating species other than the known Mastomys rat may be potential reservoirs of LASV. Overall, these results show that the assay has high specificity, sensitivity, and is a cost-effective method to conduct serosurveillance studies in Liberia.