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. 2020 May 14;9(5):374.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens9050374.

Update on Streptococcus suis Research and Prevention in the Era of Antimicrobial Restriction: 4th International Workshop on S. suis

Affiliations

Update on Streptococcus suis Research and Prevention in the Era of Antimicrobial Restriction: 4th International Workshop on S. suis

Mariela Segura et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Streptococcus suis is a swine pathogen and a zoonotic agent afflicting people in close contact with infected pigs or pork meat. Sporadic cases of human infections have been reported worldwide. In addition, S. suis outbreaks emerged in Asia, making this bacterium a primary health concern in this part of the globe. In pigs, S. suis disease results in decreased performance and increased mortality, which have a significant economic impact on swine production worldwide. Facing the new regulations in preventive use of antimicrobials in livestock and lack of effective vaccines, control of S. suis infections is worrisome. Increasing and sharing of knowledge on this pathogen is of utmost importance. As such, the pathogenesis and epidemiology of the infection, antimicrobial resistance, progress on diagnosis, prevention, and control were among the topics discussed during the 4th International Workshop on Streptococcus suis (held in Montreal, Canada, June 2019). This review gathers together recent findings on this important pathogen from lectures performed by lead researchers from several countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, Thailand, The Netherlands, UK, and USA. Finally, policies and recommendations for the manufacture, quality control, and use of inactivated autogenous vaccines are addressed to advance this important field in veterinary medicine.

Keywords: Streptococcus suis; antimicrobials; diagnosis; epidemiology; genomics; public health; swine; vaccine policies; vaccines; zoonosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
General trends in genetic and phenotypic differences between nonclinical strains of S. suis taken from the upper respiratory tract of pigs versus clinical strains of S. suis taken from the brain and lungs [64,145,146,149]: MLST = multi-locus sequence type; each MLST is defined by displaying the same allelic variant at 7 housekeeping genes. The pictures have been reproduced under a creative commons 3.0 licence from Servier Medical Art (www.smart.servier.com).
Figure A2
Figure A2
Volume of autogenous vaccine doses between 2010 and 2018 (A) and animal production distribution in France (B). Source: French agency for food, environmental, and occupational health safety (ANMV) data.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Progression in the number publications on S. suis per 5-year periods since 1990. Source: PubMed (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of worldwide distribution of major S. suis serotypes involved in swine clinical cases: The listed order of serotypes does not reflect the relative frequencies of each serotype, as they might vary from one country to another.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Most important sequence types (STs) of Streptococcus suis serotype 2 as determined by multilocus sequence typing (MLST): ST1 serotype 2 strains are mostly associated with disease in both pigs (where data are available) and humans in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. The situation is different in North America, where fewer clinical ST1 cases of infection in pigs and only one human ST1 case has been described. ST7, a single locus variant of ST1, is endemic to mainland China. Interestingly, Japan and Thailand are the only countries reporting ST28 human cases [2]. “?” means no data available from swine clinical cases.

References

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