During the period from 1995 to 2017, in order to determine the diversity of Vibrio parahaemolyticus pathogenic variants in Peru, 102 Peruvian genomes (97 from a hospital setting and 5 from an out-of-hospital setting) were analyzed using the multilocus typification scheme and BLASTn in the search for virulence genes. Fifteen different sequence types were identified. It was found that the ST3 genotype, which is found in the pandemic clone, was the most abundant, with 52% (n=53); followed by ST120, with 23.5% (n=24); and the CC345 clonal complex, with 11.8% (n=12). A total of 89 analyzed strains presented genes encoding the pathogenicity island VpaI-7 (87.3%), while 96 presented the tdh gene (94.1%), and 6 the trh gene (5.9%). The ST3 genotype was the predominant one during the evaluated period, this genotype was the cause of a major outbreak in Peru’s past history. Other pathogenic genot...

We are greatly grateful to all health personnel of Peru, especially to members of the Respiratory Virus Laboratory from NHI-Peru for their dedication in providing continued diagnostic and high-quality care during the pandemic. The authors would like to express our deep gratitude to Dr. Kelly Levano for his critical review of this manuscript. In addition, we wish to thank Guillermo Trujillo and members of the Respiratory Infectious Diseases Laboratory from NHI-Peru, especially Helen Horna and Liza Linares for their support for the Whole-Genome Sequencing. This work was supported by the National Institute of Health of Peru and the CONCYTEC-FONDECYT Program of Proyectos Especiales: Respuesta al COVID-19 2020-01-01 [grant number 034-2020-FONDECYT].