Molecular and epidemiologyical analysis of a Campylobacter jejuni outbreak in China, 2018

Abstract

Introduction: Campylobacter spp. is the most common gastrointestinal pathogen worldwide with a very low reported incidence in China. In April 2018, one 36 cases of diarrhea outbreak occurred in a high school in Beijing after a trip to another province in Southern China. The investigation for the enteric pathogen infection was conducted to identify the cause.
 Methodology: Eighteen stool specimens from 11 diarrheal patients and 3 close contacts were collected and tested for 16 enteric bacterial and viral pathogens using real-time PCR methods. Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST), pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing were applied to C. jejuni isolates in this outbreak in order to characterize the incident.
 Results: Ten (90.9%) of 11 stool specimens from diarrheal patients were positive for Campylobacter jejuni, confirmed as the cause of outbreak. Eight C. jejuni strains were obtained and produced 2 sequence types (STs) and 3 PFGE patterns. Six of them had the same ST (ST2274) and PFGE pattern (SMA001). The dominant outbreak strain with an identical subtyping profile was clustered with most chicken isolates from national MLST and PulseNet Campylobacter database. The entire 8 isolates were multi-drug resistant, with the dominant resistance pattern of nalidixic acid, tetracycline and ciprofloxacin combined, except for 2 isolates resistant to florfenicol.
 Conclusion: Molecular typing confirmed that most of the cases belonged to a clonal cluster supporting the hypothesis of a common source; however, the source was not identified. This was the first recognized Campylobacteriosis outbreak in China among 20 years.

Multilocus Sequence Types and Antimicrobial Resistance of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli Isolates of Human Patients From Beijing, China, 2017–2018

“…ST-2274 of C. jejuni and ST-9227 of C. coli caused outbreaks of foodborne diseases resulting in seven and three patients with diarrhea in Beijing, respectively (Qu et al, 2019;Li et al, 2020). ST-2274 was found in Thailand and Guizhou province and Shanghai city of China.…”

Prevalence, determinants, and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Campylobacter infection among under-five children with diarrhea at Governmental Hospitals in Hawassa city, Sidama, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study

“…Campylobacter species are small gram-negative, non-spore-forming, helical bacteria with a distinctive ‘darting’ motility, thermotolerant with a single polar flagellum, and grow in microaerobic conditions within the range of 30–42°C and are catalase and oxidase positive [ 1 ]. Campylobacter spp.…”

“…It is responsible for 400–500 million cases of infection [ 6 ] and greater than 21,000 deaths [ 7 ] each year worldwide. Acute infection by Campylobacter can cause serious long-term consequences, such as peripheral neuropathies, Guillain–Barre syndrome [ 1 ], Miller Fisher syndrome [ 8 ], and functional bowel diseases or irritable bowel syndrome [ 9 ]. Diarrhea is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan African countries including Ethiopia [ 10 ], resulting from the highest rates of child mortality [ 11 ].…”

Antibiotic Resistance Profiles and Molecular Mechanisms of Campylobacter From Chicken and Pig in China

“…Several studies have been published in China that report relatively high levels of antimicrobial resistance in Campylobacter from animals in different areas (Ma et al, 2014(Ma et al, , 2017. Furthermore, in a campylobacteriosis outbreak in China in 2018, and the domain isolate was resistant to nalidixic acid, tetracycline and ciprofloxacin (Qu et al, 2019). In China, a national annual antimicrobial-resistance surveillance system for Campylobacter in food-producing animals has been in place from 2017 to 2020 to strengthen the monitoring of antimicrobial resistance and ensure the safety of feed animals and public health.…”