Surveillance of listeriosis in the Tel Aviv District, Israel, 2010–2015

Abstract

This study analyses the epidemiologic, clinical and molecular findings of all culture-confirmed cases of listeriosis notified from 2010 to 2015 in the Tel Aviv District, which is known to have high rates of listeriosis. All clinical isolates of Listeria monocytogenes were subtyped using two-enzyme pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. During the studied period, 102 cases of listeriosis were notified, including 23 pregnancy-associated cases (23%). Among 79 non-pregnancy-associated cases, 18 had neuro-invasive disease (21%). There were 26 deaths associated with the disease. Using molecular identification, we found a number of clusters of identical bacterial clones, which pointed to possible sources of infection. The high rates of morbidity and mortality resulting from listeriosis, as well as the diverse ways of infection demonstrated in this study, accentuate the need to boost public health actions, in order to raise awareness and better control high-risk contamination routes.

Listeriosis in mainland China: A systematic review

“…Similar to other reports (Radoshevich and Cossart, 2018;Salama et al, 2018;Charlier et al, 2017;Pucci et al, 2018), listeriosis patients in China could be categorized into perinatal, UD, and non-UD patients according to their characteristics. Listeria infection shows no specific clinical manifestations, and both syndromes and positive samples were diverse among patients, with fever being the most common symptom (Charlier et al, 2017).…”

“…Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive facultative intracellular bacterium that can infect people via food contamination and cause human listeriosis (Radoshevich and Cossart, 2018). The clinical manifestations of listeriosis vary among individuals, from moderate focal infections such as diarrhea to severe infections such as septicemia, meningitis, and abortion or newborn listeriosis in perinatal patients, and the mortality rate is relatively high (20-40%) (Muñoz-Gallego et al, 2017;Salama et al, 2018). Although most reported listeriosis cases have been sporadic, many outbreaks have been reported, including outbreaks due to contaminated apples, cheese, cantaloupes, meat, and other food sources (Ottesen et al, 2016).…”

Risk factors for sporadic listeriosis in Beijing, China: a matched case–control study

“…Listeriosis, caused by the Gram-positive facultative intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes , is a rare but serious disease with a high mortality rate of 20–40% [ 1 , 2 ]. Most patients with listeriosis are infected through food contamination, as well via transplacental mother-to-infant transmission or infection during childbirth [ 3 ].…”