Human Papillomavirus 16 (HPV16) in the Middle East and North Africa: Molecular, Epidemiology and Clinical Characterization

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the main cause of sexually transmitted infections, globally.Clinical characterization and Phylogenetic analysis of HPV can be useful in improving the preventive and management measures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).The objectives of our study were to estimate the prevalence of HPV16 and its associated human cancers and to evaluate phylogenetic clustering proportions as a measure of viral domestic transmission in the MENA region.Gen-Bank was the source of all HPV16 sequences that had been collected in the MENA region; also, the sequence metadata (if obtainable) was retrieved.The probable phylogenetic clusters were identified using Neighbour Joining phylogenetic analysis.The total number of available HPV16 sequences was 997 (which presented just a total of 9 MENA Countries) dispersed as follows: Iran had the highest number of HPV16 sequences (n = 664, 66%), followed by Morocco (n = 176, 17.6%), and Turkey (n= 64, 6.42%)The findings demonstrated that the MENA have high incidence of HPV 16 infection in females as well as high frequencies of the HPV 16 genotypes (sequences linked to the E6 gene) associated with cervical cancer in the MENA.On the other hand, it was noted that the number of HPV16 available sequences in the MENA region has increased over time.Analysis of the HPV16 clusters revealed that transmission of HPV 16 was between the countries of the MENA region, such as (Morocco and Algeria), (Morocco and Iran) and (Iran, Morocco, and Algeria).