Introduction of Mycobacterium ulcerans disease in the Bankim Health District of Cameroon follows damming of the Mapé River

Koen Vandelannoote; Gerd Pluschke; Miriam Bolz; Martin W Bratschi; Sarah Kerber; Timothy P Stinear; Bouke C de Jong

doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0008501

Introduction of Mycobacterium ulcerans disease in the Bankim Health District of Cameroon follows damming of the Mapé River

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2020 Sep 4;14(9):e0008501. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008501. eCollection 2020 Sep.

Authors

Koen Vandelannoote^{1

2}, Gerd Pluschke^{3

4}, Miriam Bolz^{3

4}, Martin W Bratschi^{3

4}, Sarah Kerber^{3

4}, Timothy P Stinear², Bouke C de Jong¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
² Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne at the Doherty Institute for Infection & Immunity, Melbourne, Australia.
³ Molecular Immunology, Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel, Switzerland.
⁴ University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract

Buruli ulcer (BU) is an emerging ulcerative skin disease caused by infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans. Efforts to control its spread have been hampered by our limited understanding of M. ulcerans reservoirs and transmission, and the factors leading to the emergence of BU disease in a particular region. In this report we investigate an anecdotal link between damming the Mapé River in Cameroon and the emergence of BU in the Health Districts bordering Lake Bankim, the impoundment created by the Mapé dam. We used bacterial population genomics and molecular dating to find compelling support for a 2000 M. ulcerans introduction event that followed about 10 years after the filling of the newly created impoundment in 1988. We compared the genomic reconstructions with high-resolution satellite imagery to investigate what major environmental alterations might have driven the emergence of the new focus.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Buruli Ulcer / epidemiology*
Buruli Ulcer / microbiology*
Cameroon / epidemiology
Humans
Lakes
Mycobacterium ulcerans / classification
Mycobacterium ulcerans / genetics
Mycobacterium ulcerans / isolation & purification*
Phylogeny

Grants and funding

KV was supported by a PhD-grant of the Flemish Interuniversity Council - University Development Cooperation (Belgium) and a research project from the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation of the Flemish Government (EWI). BdJ was supported by the European Research Council-INTERRUPTB starting grant (nr.311725). The computational resources used in this work were provided by the HPC core facility CalcUA and VSC (Flemish Supercomputer Center), funded by the University of Antwerp, the Hercules Foundation and the Flemish Government - department EWI. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.