First report of citrus virus A in citrus in South Africa

Abstract

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) of citrus indicator hosts, inoculated from psorosis-like diseased samples, revealed the presence of the first South African variant of citrus virus A (CiVA).  This virus was first identified in citrus in Italy and is the second member of the Coguvirus genus within the order Bunyavirales. The South African sequence variants of CiVA shares 95.55% (RNA1) and 94.82% (RNA2) nucleotide sequence identity with the Italian CiVA sequence. The discovery of CiVA in South African citrus orchards indicates the global distribution of CiVA and further investigations are required to determine the association of CiVA with psorosis-like disease symptoms.