Screening of inmates transferred to Spain reveals a Peruvian prison as a reservoir of persistent Mycobacterium tuberculosis MDR strains and mixed infections
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
Screening of inmates transferred to Spain reveals a Peruvian prison as a reservoir of persistent Mycobacterium tuberculosis MDR strains and mixed infections
Abascal, Estefanía; Herranz, Marta; Acosta, Fermín; Agapito, Juan; Cabibbe, Andrea M.; Monteserin, Johana; Ruiz Serrano, María Jesús; Gijón, Paloma; Fernández-González, Francisco; Lozano, Nuria; Chiner-Oms, Álvaro; Cáceres Nakiche, Tatiana; Pintado, Pilar Gómez; Acín, Enrique; Valencia, Eddy; Muñoz, Patricia; Comas, Iñaki; Cirillo, Daniela M.; Ritacco, Viviana; Gotuzzo Herencia, José Eduardo; García de Viedma, Darío
It is relevant to evaluate MDR-tuberculosis in prisons and its impact on the global epidemiology of this disease. However, systematic molecular epidemiology programs in prisons are lacking. A health-screening program performed on arrival for inmates transferred from Peruvian prisons to Spain led to the diagnosis of five MDR-TB cases from one of the biggest prisons in Latin America. They grouped into two MIRU-VNTR-clusters (Callao-1 and Callao-2), suggesting a reservoir of two prevalent MDR strains. A high-rate of overexposure was deduced because one of the five cases was coinfected by a pansusceptible strain. Callao-1 strain was also identified in 2018 in a community case in Spain who had been in the same Peruvian prison in 2002-5. A strain-specific-PCR tailored from WGS data was implemented in Peru, allowing the confirmation that these strains were currently responsible for the majority of the MDR cases in that prison, including a new mixed infection.