Human pegivirus 1 in healthy blood donors and in acute febrile patients from Mato Grosso, Midwestern Brazil.

The association between Human Pegivirus 1 (HPgV-1, Pegivirus hominis, family Hepaciviridae) with disease etiology remains unclear, yet this virus is widely distributed among people exposed to contaminated blood. This study aimed to identify the prevalence and characterize HPgV-1 genomes obtained from acute febrile patients (n = 92 from 2019) and from blood donors (n = 633 from 2022) sampled in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The serum samples were tested by RT-qPCR for a conserved 5' UTR region of HPgV-1. Nucleic acid of 28 positive samples was converted to ds-cDNA, purified and sequenced with an Illumina NextSeq platform. The prevalence of HPgV-1 among acute febrile patients was 4.35% (4/92), who were mostly female (3/4; 75.00%) mean 28.86 (12-67) years-old; whereas among blood donors it was 3.79% (24/633), which were predominantly male (16/24; 66.67%), aged 30-45 years-old (13/24; 54.17%). Eight HPgV-1 genomic sequences (7,708-9,248) were recovered; two belong to subgenotype 2a and clustered with strains from United States, Brazil, France and Japan, while the remaining six genomes from subgenotype 2b grouped with strains from Pará, Brazil and abroad. HPgV-1 detection in acute febrile patients and in healthy blood donors highlights the necessity to investigate the epidemiological aspects of this infection, as well as the possible impact to public health in Midwestern Brazil.