Molecular Epidemiology of tuberculosis in a rural area of high prevalence in south India: Implications for disease control and prevention.
Sujatha Narayanan; Sulochana Das; Renu Garg; Lalitha Hari; Vijay Bhaskara Rao; Thomas R Frieden; Narayanan, P.R.
Journal of Clinical Microbiology; 2002; 40; 4785-4788.
Molecular and conventional epidemiologic techniques were used to study the mechanisms and risk factors for tuberculosis transmission in a rural area with high prevalence in south India. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis with IS 6110 and direct repeat probes was performed with 378 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from patients. Forty-one percent of M. tuberculosis isolates harbored a single copy of IS 6110 . Of 378 patients, 236 had distinct strains; 142 (38%) shared a strain with other patients, indicating recent infection. Older patients, those detected by a house-to-house community survey, and those hospitalized in a sanatorium were more likely to have had a recent infection. These findings suggest that the majority of the tuberculosis cases in south India were due to reactivation; therefore, efforts to control tuberculosis should be sustained.
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