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. 2022 Aug 29;12(1):14669.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-16967-w.

Genomic epidemiology and emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the United Arab Emirates

Habiba Alsafar #  1   2   3 , Mohammed Albreiki #  1 , Mira Mousa  1   4 , Syafiq Kamarul Azman  5 , Hema Vurivi  1 , Fathimathuz Waasia  1 , Dymitr Ruta  6 , Farida Alhosani  7 , Shereena Almazrouei  7 , Rowan Abuyadek  7   8 , Francis Selvaraj  9 , Irene Chaves-Coira  10 , Val Zvereff  11   12 , Mohamed A Y Abdel-Malek  13   14 , Nawal Alkaabi  15 , Maimunah Uddin  15 , Tayba Al Awadhi  16 , Nada Al Marzouqi  16 , Fatma Al Attar  16 , Safeiya Al Shamsi  16 , Fatima Al Shehhi  16 , Hala Alteneiji  16 , Kalthoom Mohamed  16 , Noor Al Muhairi  16 , Hussain AlRand  16 , Asma Fikri  16 , Andreas Henschel  17   18
Affiliations

Genomic epidemiology and emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the United Arab Emirates

Habiba Alsafar et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Since the declaration of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak as a pandemic, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public health authorities have adopted strict measures to reduce transmission as early as March 2020. As a result of these measures, flight suspension, nationwide RT-PCR and surveillance of viral sequences were extensively implemented. This study aims to characterize the epidemiology, transmission pattern, and emergence of variants of concerns (VOCs) and variants of interests (VOIs) of SARS-CoV-2 in the UAE, followed by the investigation of mutations associated with hospitalized cases. A total of 1274 samples were collected and sequenced from all seven emirates between the period of 25 April 2020 to 15 February 2021. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated multiple introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into the UAE in the early pandemic, followed by a local spread of root clades (A, B, B.1 and B.1.1). As the international flight resumed, the frequencies of VOCs surged indicating the January peak of positive cases. We observed that the hospitalized cases were significantly associated with the presence of B.1.1.7 (p < 0.001), B.1.351 (p < 0.001) and A.23.1 (p = 0.009). Deceased cases are more likely to occur in the presence of B.1.351 (p < 0.001) and A.23.1 (p = 0.022). Logistic and ridge regression showed that 51 mutations are significantly associated with hospitalized cases with the highest proportion originated from S and ORF1a genes (31% and 29% respectively). Our study provides an epidemiological insight of the emergence of VOCs and VOIs following the borders reopening and worldwide travels. It provides reassurance that hospitalization is markedly more associated with the presence of VOCs. This study can contribute to understand the global transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Time-scale Phylogenetic tree of the SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UAE (shown as circles) from 25 April 2020 to 15 February 2021, contextualized with 1993 most similar sequences selected from GISAID.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Divergence and time trees for VOCs. (a) B.1.1.7/Alpha (b) B.1.351/Beta, local cluster highlighted. UAE sequences are contextualized with most similar international sequences as per BLAST search. In both cases, high phylogenetic diversity indicates multiple introductions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Manhattan plot of regenie’s GWAS on the corresponding SNPs to conduct whole genome regression on the severity trait.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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