Findings in highly related (≤5 SNPs) and potentially related (6–12 SNPs) clusters are separately presented. When describing the age characteristics of source cases, for instances where a secondary case had more than one possible source case, the average age of all possible source cases was presented. Characteristics of suspected instances of transmission were analysed, including case demographics and transmission settings.
An epidemiological link was defined as when exposure to a suspected source case/s in a shared space was either known, or likely based on identified shared personal connections, when the suspected source case/s were infectious. In each instance, transmission between the two cases also needed to be physically, geographically and temporally possible (Appendix 2 and Box 1). Briefly, local-transmission (defined as transmission occurring within the state of Victoria) was classified as ‘likely’ where both epidemiological and genomic links were demonstrated between two cases, ‘possible’ where genomic clustering was seen without a known epidemiological link, and ‘probable’ where epidemiological links were identified but genomic data were unavailable. With additional definitions and methodological detail available in Appendix 2 and Box 1. Additionally, no studies have assessed the utility of routine WGS to support TB program activities. However, no studies have yet used WGS and epidemiological data to provide a detailed characterisation of Mtb transmission, including an examination of transmission by age-group and transmission setting, in a low-incidence setting. Results revealed that WGS and epidemiological data have been used to describe clustering in many settings and to investigate Mtb transmission contexts in high-incidence settings.
We searched Medline for all articles published from database inception to 31 December 2021, with the terms “ Mycobacterium tuberculosis” and “whole genome sequencing”, limited to human studies.
Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is increasingly used by tuberculosis (TB) programs to monitor Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb) transmission, with its increased discriminatory power compared to previous typing methods allowing improved detection of clusters and chains of transmission.
0 kommentar(er)
