Deciphering the Tangible Spatio-Temporal Spread of a 25-Year Tuberculosis Outbreak Boosted by Social Determinants

Abstract

Infectious disease outbreaks represent a significant problem for public health. Tracing outbreak expansion and understanding the main factors behind emergence and persistence remain critical to effective disease control.

Mutation rates and the molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium abscessus

“…This method exploits preexisting and ongoing microbial evolution that marks bacteria, viruses, and fungi as like or unlike, then overlays epidemiologic data to inform judgments as to the probability of transmission. In the specific example of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the agent of tuberculosis), genomic epidemiology studies have successfully tracked strains traveling with their human hosts over space [within and between countries ( 1 )] and time [weeks to decades ( 2 )]. The same method when applied to the nontuberculous species, Mycobacterium abscessus (MAB), produced unexpected results generating discordant interpretations supporting ( 3 ) or refuting ( 4 ) widespread human-to-human transmission.…”