Open AccessMolecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in Elche, Spain: a 7-year study
Author(s) -
Marcial García,
José Carlos del Castillo Rodríguez,
Jesús Navarro,
Sofía Samper,
Carlos Martı́n,
Gloria Royo
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of medical microbiology/journal of medical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1473-5644
pISSN - 0022-2615
DOI - 10.1099/0022-1317-51-3-273
Subject(s) - epidemiology , tuberculosis , mycobacterium tuberculosis , molecular epidemiology , restriction fragment length polymorphism , typing , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , medicine , cluster (spacecraft) , biology , immunology , microbiology and biotechnology , genotype , pathology , genetics , computer science , gene , programming language
The epidemiology of tuberculosis in Elche (Spain) was studied by restriction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) typing of clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis over a 7-year period. A total of 165 isolates was typed and the clinico-epidemiological data of the patients were studied retrospectively. An overall cluster aggregation of 52.4% was found, rising to 71.43% in HIV-positive patients. There was greater aggregation in younger patients, but no statistically significant differences when other variables were analysed. The percentage of aggregation was higher than in other studies in Spain and this may be due to the longer time period of this study. The high percentage of aggregation in young patients and in thosewho were HIV-positive suggests increased recent transmission in both groups.