Indigenous Transmission of Mycobacterium africanum in Canada: A Case Series and Cluster Analysis

Arpita Chakravarti; Hafid Soualhine; Meenu Sharma; Paul Rivest; Louise Poirier; Christian Lavallée

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofz088

Indigenous Transmission of Mycobacterium africanum in Canada: A Case Series and Cluster Analysis

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2019 Mar 7;6(4):ofz088. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofz088. eCollection 2019 Apr.

Authors

Arpita Chakravarti¹, Hafid Soualhine², Meenu Sharma², Paul Rivest³, Louise Poirier⁴, Christian Lavallée⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology and Adult Infectious Diseases, Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, Canada.
² National Reference Centre for Mycobacteriology, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg.
³ Direction de Santé Publique, Centre Intégré Universitaire de Soins et de Services Sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Canada.
⁴ Department of Microbiology, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, Montreal, Canada.
⁵ Department of Microbiology and Adult Infectious Diseases, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, Montreal, Canada.

Abstract

Mycobacterium africanum is an important cause of human tuberculosis and is found almost exclusively in West Africa. We identified a cluster of patients in Montreal, Canada, with M africanum disease that share identical genotypic signatures by mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit-variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing and a putative epidemiological link, thus providing evidence of possible local transmission of M africanum in Montreal over a 10-year period.

Keywords: Mycobacterium africanum; cluster; genotype; transmission.

Publication types

Case Reports