IMPORTANCE Identification of the bacterium responsible for an outbreak can aid in disease management. However, traditional culture-based diagnosis can be difficult, particularly if no specific diagnostic test is available for an outbreak strain. OBJECTIVE To explore the potential of metagenomics, which is the direct sequencing of DNA extracted from microbiologically complex samples, as an ope...

BACKGROUND In the winter and spring of 2011 a large outbreak of cryptosporidiosis occurred in Skellefteå municipality, Sweden. This study summarizes the outbreak investigation in terms of outbreak size, duration, clinical characteristics, possible source(s) and the potential for earlier detection using calls to a health advice line. METHODS The investigation included two epidemiological quest...

Optical maps for five representative clinical, food-borne and bovine-derived isolates from the 2006 Escherichia coli O157 : H7 outbreak linked to fresh spinach in the United States showed a common set of 14 distinct chromosomal markers that define the outbreak strain. Partial 454 DNA sequencing was used to characterize the optically mapped chromosomal markers. The markers included insertions, d...

Two hundred thirty-three isolates of Escherichia coli O157:H7 were analyzed by both pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and bacteriophage typing. All 26 isolates from persons whose illness was associated with a recent multistate outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections linked to the consumption of undercooked hamburgers and all 27 isolates from incriminated lots of hamburger meat had the same...

Disease outbreak detection, monitoring and notification systems play an important role in assessing threats to public health since disease outbreaks are becoming increasingly common world-wide. There are several systems in use around the world, with coverage of national, international and global disease outbreaks. These systems use different taxonomies and classifications for the detection and ...

Introduction Outbreaks of waterborne gastrointestinal disease occur routinely in North America, resulting in considerable morbidity, mortality, and cost (Hrudey, Payment et al. 2003). Outbreak detection methods generally attempt to identify anomalies in time, but do not identify the type or source of an outbreak. We seek to develop a framework for both detection and classification of outbreaks ...

one of the world's major mineral dust source regions lies along the border between iran and afghanistan. in this studyit is hypothesized that a low-level jet may play in role in generating the intensity of this source region. the presence of alow-level jet east of the seistan mountains is documented here for the first time. the jet exists mainly from may toseptember and has a core at 850 mb. ma...

Neisseria meningitidis (N. meningitidis) serogroup C sequence type (ST)-4821 caused an outbreak in 2010 in Shandong province of China. Twenty-one non-outbreak-associated strains were isolated, along with twenty-eight N. meningitides serogroup C ST-4821 isolates. Therefore, it's essential to identify and clarify characterization of the real outbreak-associated strains with a rapid method during ...

A nosocomial outbreak of Serratia marcescens in respiratory samples predominantly from patients in a surgical intensive care unit is reported. Most of these patients were cardiac surgical patients. Initially, a vigorous but inconclusive investigation was implemented on the basis of standardized (according the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) steps of outbreak investigation. Then, ...

The Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in the Republic of Korea have given huge impacts in different aspects. Health security is no more a new coinage. Global health security became more realistic in its practical application. In the perspective of global health, it will be helpful to peruse lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak in We...