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. 2021 May 12;10(5):591.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens10050591.

A Nosocomial Outbreak of Invasive Listeriosis in An Italian Hospital: Epidemiological and Genomic Features

Valeria Russini  1 , Martina Spaziante  2 , Tiziana Zottola  3 , Anna Giovanna Fermani  4 , Gina Di Giampietro  1 , Giovanni Blanco  5 , Paolo Fabietti  5 , Riccardo Marrone  5 , Roberta Parisella  5 , Sergio Parrocchia  5 , Teresa Bossù  1 , Stefano Bilei  1 , Maria Laura De Marchis  1
Affiliations

A Nosocomial Outbreak of Invasive Listeriosis in An Italian Hospital: Epidemiological and Genomic Features

Valeria Russini et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a widespread opportunistic pathogen that causes the listeriosis foodborne disease. This bacterium has become a common contaminant of handled food, and a relevant public health issue. Here we describe a nosocomial outbreak of listeriosis caused by an ST451 strain of L. monocytogenes involving three cancer and one immunocompromised patients hospitalized in different units from the same hospital during September and October 2020. The epidemiological investigation was conducted using traditional microbiological methodology combined with a whole genome sequencing approach. The source of contamination was identified in the kitchen hospital, where a meat slicer used to prepare patients' meals was tested positive to the same sequence type (ST) of L. monocytogenes. This is the first report of an outbreak of listeriosis caused by ST451 in Italy.

Keywords: Listeria monocytogenes; ST451; listeriosis; nosocomial outbreak; whole genome sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline of epidemiological, environmental, and laboratory investigation of an outbreak of invasive hospital-acquired listeriosis linked to a contaminated meat slicer. BC: blood cultures.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic tree based on SNPs (SNP Observer Pipeline on IRIDA ARIES) of all samples belonging to ST451 in the IRIDA database.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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