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. 2023 Feb;9(2):mgen000940.
doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.000940.

Genomic sentinel surveillance: Salmonella Paratyphi B outbreak in travellers coinciding with a mass gathering in Iraq

Marie Anne Chattaway  1 , Natasha Shersby  1 , Parisha Katwa  2 , Kyle Adair  2 , Anais Painset  1 , Gauri Godbole  3
Affiliations

Genomic sentinel surveillance: Salmonella Paratyphi B outbreak in travellers coinciding with a mass gathering in Iraq

Marie Anne Chattaway et al. Microb Genom. 2023 Feb.

Abstract

Salmonella Paratyphi B infections in England are the least common imported typhoidal infection but can still cause invasive disease. Sentinel surveillance at the reference laboratory detected an outbreak from Iraq due to reported travel history, enabling enhanced PCR testing for a quick diagnosis.

Keywords: Iraq; Paratyphi B; genomics; outbreak; sentinel surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Trends of S. Paratyphi B cases and associated countries of travel according to sample date between January 2004 and October 2021 in England. Where a sample date was not specified the receipt date was used. The majority of travel was not stated on the request form and other countries not shown had between one and two cases over the 17 year period. South America continent travel included a variety of destinations within a case including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Visits by UK residents to Iraq and confirmed S. Paratyphi B cases with travel to Iraq against dates of the Ashura festival 2015–2021. Information on visits by UK residents is not available for 2020 as the ONS International Passenger Survey was paused in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Phylogenetic tree of 153 S. Paratyphi B isolates referred to GBRU, 2004 to October 2021. Recent outbreak t5.141,HC5_1620 strains (red text) fall within the same cluster of endemic strains circulating in Iraq. There are distinct clades of S. Paratyphi B associated with South America (purple), Iraq (green) and Pakistan (yellow) since WGS began.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Phylogenetic clade associated with travel to Iraq. Top branch: a cluster of related cases that occurred in 2015. The recent outbreak strains from t5.141/HC5_1620 in red strains are on the bottom branch. They formed a monophyletic branch indicating sub-clusters of highly related strains (0 SNP differences). The isolates from patients with known travel to Iraq are indicated in green.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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