Genetic profile of the whole genome sequence of African swine fever virus from the first outbreak in Malaysian Borneo

African swine fever (ASF), a severe and highly contagious haemorrhagic viral disease of pigs, is becoming a major threat not only in Malaysia but around the world. The first confirmed case of ASF in Malaysia was reported in February 2021. Despite the emergence of ASF in Malaysia, genetic information on this causative pathogen for the local livestock is still limited. This study aimed to genetically characterize the African swine fever virus (ASFV) responsible for the 2021 outbreak in Malaysia. The genome of the ASFV isolated during the first outbreak in Malaysia was analysed as ASFV/Sabah/Malaysia/1160/21 which has 190,594 base pairs, with a nitrogenous bases (GC) content of 40.33% and 195 predicted Open Reading Frames (ORF). The complete genome sequence was compared with other annotated ASFV genomes retrieved from database of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to obtain information based on target gene B646L, E183L, intergenic region (IGR) between I73R and I329L (IGRI73R-I329L), EP402R and B602L. The ASFV/Sabah/Malaysia/1160/21 genome had a high similarity percentage to the reference genome, Georgia 2007 and all Southeast Asian strains. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the ASFV strain belonged to genotype II, serogroup 8, CVR1 and showed high characteristics of IGR variant II based on IGRI73R-I329L. This study expands our understanding of genetic diversity and provides significant insights into the genomic characteristics and variation of ASFV strains that are circulating in Malaysia.