| 1. |
- Beeton, Michael L., et al.
(författare)
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Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections, 11 countries in Europe and Israel, 2011 to 2016
- 2020
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Ingår i: Eurosurveillance. - : EUR CENTRE DIS PREVENTION & CONTROL. - 1025-496X .- 1560-7917. ; 25:2, s. 39-51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a leading cause of community-acquired pneumonia, with large epidemics previously described to occur every 4 to 7 years.Aim: To better understand the diagnostic methods used to detect M. pneumoniae; to better understand M. pneumoniae testing and surveillance in use; to identify epidemics; to determine detection number per age group, age demographics for positive detections, concurrence of epidemics and annual peaks across geographical areas; and to determine the effect of geographical location on the timing of epidemics.Methods: A questionnaire was sent in May 2016 to Mycoplasma experts with national or regional responsibility within the ESCMID Study Group for Mycoplasma and Chlamydia Infections in 17 countries across Europe and Israel, retrospectively requesting details on M. pneumoniae-positive samples from January 2011 to April 2016. The Moving Epidemic Method was used to determine epidemic periods and effect of country latitude across the countries for the five periods under investigation.Results: Representatives from 12 countries provided data on M. pneumoniae infections, accounting for 95,666 positive samples. Two laboratories initiated routine macrolide resistance testing since 2013. Between 2011 and 2016, three epidemics were identified: 2011/12, 2014/15 and 2015/16. The distribution of patient ages for M. pneumoniae-positive samples showed three patterns. During epidemic years, an association between country latitude and calendar week when epidemic periods began was noted.Conclusions: An association between epidemics and latitude was observed. Differences were noted in the age distribution of positive cases and detection methods used and practice. A lack of macrolide resistance monitoring was noted.
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| 2. |
- Cole, Michelle J., et al.
(författare)
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Ten years of external quality assessment (EQA) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibility testing in Europe elucidate high reliability of data
- 2019
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Ingår i: BMC Infectious Diseases. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2334. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Confidence in any diagnostic and antimicrobial susceptibility testing data is provided by appropriate and regular quality assurance (QA) procedures. In Europe, the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Susceptibility Programme (Euro-GASP) has been monitoring the antimicrobial susceptibility in Neisseria gonorrhoeae since 2004. Euro-GASP includes an external quality assessment (EQA) scheme as an essential component for a quality-assured laboratory-based surveillance programme. Participation in the EQA scheme enables any problems with the performed antimicrobial susceptibility testing to be identified and addressed, feeds into the curricula of laboratory training organised by the Euro-GASP network, and assesses the capacity of individual laboratories to detect emerging new, rare and increasing antimicrobial resistance phenotypes. Participant performance in the Euro-GASP EQA scheme over a 10 year period (2007 to 2016, no EQA in 2013) was evaluated.METHODS: Antimicrobial susceptibility category and MIC results from the first 5 years (2007-2011) of the Euro-GASP EQA were compared with the latter 5 years (2012-2016). These time periods were selected to assess the impact of the 2012 European Union case definitions for the reporting of antimicrobial susceptibility.RESULTS: dilutions of the modal MIC, respectively. The most common method used was Etest on GC agar base. There was a shift to using breakpoints published by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) in the latter 5 years, however overall impact on the validity of results was limited, as the percentage categorical agreement and MIC concordance changed very little between the two five-year periods.CONCLUSIONS: The high level of comparability of results in this EQA scheme indicates that high quality data are produced by the Euro-GASP participants and gives confidence in susceptibility and resistance data generated by laboratories performing decentralised testing.
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| 3. |
- Seth-Smith, Helena M. B., et al.
(författare)
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Ongoing evolution of Chlamydia trachomatis lymphogranuloma venereum : exploring the genomic diversity of circulating strains
- 2021
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Ingår i: Microbial Genomics. - : Microbiology Society. - 2057-5858. ; 7:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), the invasive infection of the sexually transmissible infection (STI) Chlamydia trachomatis, is caused by strains from the LGV biovar, most commonly represented by ompA- genotypes L2b and L2. We investigated the diversity in LGV samples across an international collection over seven years using typing and genome sequencing. LGV- positive samples (n=321) from eight countries collected between 2011 and 2017 (Spain n=97, Netherlands n=67, Switzerland n=64, Australia n=53, Sweden n=37, Hungary n=31, Czechia n=30, Slovenia n=10) were genotyped for pmpH and ompA variants. All were found to contain the 9 bp insertion in the pmpH gene, previously associated with ompA- genotype L2b. However, analysis of the ompA gene shows ompA- genotype L2b (n=83), ompA- genotype L2 (n=180) and several variants of these (n=52; 12 variant types), as well as other/mixed ompA-genotypes (n=6). To elucidate the genomic diversity, whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed from selected samples using SureSelect target enrichment, resulting in 42 genomes, covering a diversity of ompA- genotypes and representing most of the countries sampled. A phylogeny of these data clearly shows that these ompA- genotypes derive from an ompA- genotype L2b ancestor, carrying up to eight SNPs per isolate. SNPs within ompA are overrep-resented among genomic changes in these samples, each of which results in an amino acid change in the variable domains of OmpA (major outer membrane protein, MOMP). A reversion to ompA- genotype L2 with the L2b genomic backbone is commonly seen. The wide diversity of ompA- genotypes found in these recent LGV samples indicates that this gene is under immunological selection. Our results suggest that the ompA- genotype L2b genomic backbone is the dominant strain circulating and evolving particularly in men who have sex with men (MSM) populations.
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