Dengue fever remains underreported in Africa due to lack of awareness among healthcare providers, the presence of other febrile illnesses, and insufficient laboratory testing. We present a case of imported dengue fever from Burkina Faso to Japan, where an outbreak of dengue was reported on October 18, 2016. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the isolate from our patient belonged to a distinct of sylvatic dengue viruses, suggesting that dengue viruses have been maintained in the mosquitoes and human cycles in Burkina Faso for more than 30 years.
Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has been documented within Central and South America, Asia, and Africa. Here we report the isolation of virus from a patient infected with ZIKV returning to Japan from the Dominican Republic. The ZIKV strain was imaged by electron microscopy and its complete genome sequence was analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis and molecular characterization revealed that the strain was of the Asian lineage, and carried two unique mutations in its NS5 region. These mutations are characteristic of strains that originated in the Dominican Republic and the USA in 2016.