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Article History

Received: 13 August 2025

Accepted: 8 January 2026

First Online: 6 February 2026

Declarations

:

: Ethical approval for the secondary use of samples was obtained by the Institutional Review Board of the ITM (IRB reference number: 1523/21). According to ITM’s policy, sample left-overs of patients presenting at ITM, can be used for research as long as the patients does not explicitly state their objection. Additionally to clinical samples, the viral culture supernatant used for extraction of viral RNA was completely anonymized and cannot be linked to the original donor. The study was conducted according to the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki, and all applicable local and international regulations. For the AUFI samples from INRB Goma, the relevant ethics review committees, the School of Public Health, University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN), Democratic Republic of Congo (ref. ESP/CE/122/2021, ESP/CE/086/2022 and ESP/CE/108/2023), Institutional Review Board of the Institute of Tropical Medicine ITM Antwerp (ref. 1462/21) and the Ethical Committee of the Antwerp University Hospital UZA (ref. B3002021000105) reviewed and approved the study protocol in DRC and in Belgium. The samples for standardization or validation of diagnostic tests came from the national surveillance system for Arbovirus, performed by the National Reference Laboratory from IPK under the approval of the IPK ethics committee (CEI-IPK 24–22).

: Not applicable.

: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used ChatGPT and PHIND to improve readability of some phrases and for scripts in R Studio. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.

: The authors declare no competing interests.