Rapid emergence of African swine fever virus variants with different numbers of a tandem repeat sequence in South Korea

Abstract

African swine fever virus variants with different numbers of a 10-bp tandem repeat were isolated in South Korea soon after being identified in wild boar. The short emergence periods and sympatric distributions within a narrow geographical region suggest that the variants were sporadically generated in the pre-existing viral population.

Keywords: African swine fever virus; South Korea; intergenic region variant; replication slippage; tandem repeat; wild boar.