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Outbreak investigation for toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae wound infections in refugees from Northeast Africa and Syria in Switzerland and Germany by whole genome sequencing

Meinel, Dominique M. and Kuehl, Richard and Zbinden, Reinhard and Boskova, Veronika and Garzoni, Christian and Fadini, Davide and Dolina, Marisa and Blumel, Benjamin and Weibel, Thomas and Tschudin-Sutter, Sarah and Widmer, Andreas F. and Bielicki, Julia A. and Dierig, Alexa and Heininger, Ulrich and Konrad, Regina and Berger, Anja and Hinic, Vladimir and Goldenberger, Daniel and Blaich, Annette and Stadler, Tanja and Battegay, Manuel and Sing, Andreas and Egli, Adrian. (2016) Outbreak investigation for toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae wound infections in refugees from Northeast Africa and Syria in Switzerland and Germany by whole genome sequencing. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 22 (12). 1003e1-1003e8.

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Official URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/61733/

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Abstract

Toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae is an important and potentially fatal threat to patients and public health. During the current dramatic influx of refugees into Europe, our objective was to use whole genome sequencing for the characterization of a suspected outbreak of C. diphtheriae wound infections among refugees. After conventional culture, we identified C. diphtheriae using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) and investigated toxigenicity by PCR. Whole genome sequencing was performed on a MiSeq Illumina with <70xcoverage, 2x250 bp read length, and mapping against a reference genome. Twenty cases of cutaneous C. diphtheriae in refugees from East African countries and Syria identified between April and August 2015 were included. Patients presented with wound infections shortly after arrival in Switzerland and Germany. Toxin production was detected in 9/20 (45%) isolates. Whole genome sequencing-based typing revealed relatedness between isolates using neighbour-joining algorithms. We detected three separate clusters among epidemiologically related refugees. Although the isolates within a cluster showed strong relatedness, isolates differed by <50 nucleotide polymorphisms. Toxigenic C. diphtheriae associated wound infections are currently observed more frequently in Europe, due to refugees travelling under poor hygienic conditions. Close genetic relatedness of C. diphtheriae isolates from 20 refugees with wound infections indicates likely transmission between patients. However, the diversity within each cluster and phylogenetic time-tree analysis suggest that transmissions happened several months ago, most likely outside Europe. Whole genome sequencing offers the potential to describe outbreaks at very high resolution and is a helpful tool in infection tracking and identification of transmission routes.
Faculties and Departments:03 Faculty of Medicine > Departement Biomedizin > Department of Biomedicine, University Hospital Basel > Applied Microbiology Research (Egli)
UniBasel Contributors:Egli, Adrian
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:1469-0691
e-ISSN:1469-0691
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
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Last Modified:22 Jul 2020 14:55
Deposited On:22 Jul 2020 14:55

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