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. 2022 Nov;27(46):2200849.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.46.2200849.

Outbreak of imported diphtheria with Corynebacterium diphtheriae among migrants arriving in Germany, 2022

Franziska Badenschier  1   2 , Anja Berger  3   4 , Alexandra Dangel  5 , Annika Sprenger  5 , Bernhard Hobmaier  4 , Claudia Sievers  1   2   6 , Henrieke Prins  6   7 , Achim Dörre  6 , Christiane Wagner-Wiening  8 , Wiebe Külper-Schiek  6 , Ole Wichmann  6 , Andreas Sing  3
Affiliations

Outbreak of imported diphtheria with Corynebacterium diphtheriae among migrants arriving in Germany, 2022

Franziska Badenschier et al. Euro Surveill. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

From July 2022, cases of imported diphtheria with toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae remarkably increased among migrants arriving in Germany. Up to 30 September 2022, 44 cases have been reported to the national public health institute, all laboratory-confirmed, male, and mainly coming from Syria (n = 21) and Afghanistan (n = 17). Phylogeny and available journey information indicate that most cases (n = 19) were infected along the Balkan route. Active case finding, increased laboratory preparedness and epicentre localisation in countries along this route are important.

Keywords: Corynebacterium diphtheriae; Next Generation Sequencing; cgMLST; diphtheria; infectious disease outbreaks; migration and health; outbreak investigation; population surveillance; skin lesions; vaccine-preventable disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Weekly distributions of diphtheria cases fulfilling the German reference case definitiona reported to the national public health institute, Germany, 2019–2022b (n = 123)
Figure 2
Figure 2
Minimum spanning tree of the cgMLST allelic profiles of C. diphtheriae isolates detected among migrants, Germany, 2021–2022a (n = 45)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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