Nepalese origin of cholera epidemic in Haiti

Frerichs, Ralph R.; Keim, Paul; Barrais, Robert; Piarroux, Renaud

doi:10.1111/j.1469-0691.2012.03841.x

Cited by 122 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(35 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…At the end of October 2010, 10 months after a catastrophic earthquake, a violent cholera outbreak flared up in the valley of the Artibonite, the main river system of the country, most likely triggered by the importation of a toxigenic Vibrio cholerae strain (Chin et al 2011;Piarroux et al 2011;Hendriksen and al. 2011;Frerichs et al 2012). The epidemic spread to the whole Haitian territory in less than two months.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the probability of extinction of the Haiti cholera epidemic

Bertuzzo

Finger

Mari

et al. 2014

Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

More than three years after its appearance in Haiti, cholera has already caused more than 8,500 deaths and 695,000 infections and it is feared to become endemic. However, no clear evidence of a stable environmental reservoir of pathogenic Vibrio cholerae, the infective agent of the disease, has emerged so far, suggesting the possibility that the transmission cycle of the disease is being maintained by bacteria freshly shed by infected individuals. Should this be the case, cholera could in principle be eradicated from Haiti. Here, we develop a framework for the estimation of the probability of extinction of the epidemic based on current information on epidemiological dynamics and health-care practice. Cholera spreading is modeled by an individual-based spatially-explicit stochastic model that accounts for the dynamics of susceptible, infected and recovered individuals hosted in different local communities connected through hydrologic and human mobility networks. Our results indicate that the probability that the epidemic goes extinct before the end of 2016 is of the order of 1 %. This low probability of extinction highlights the need for more targeted and effective interventions to possibly stop cholera in Haiti.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the probability of extinction of the Haiti cholera epidemic

Bertuzzo

Finger

Mari

et al. 2014

Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This aligned the cholera outbreak in Nepal and the arrival of Nepalese soldiers in Haiti with the start of the Haitian outbreak (145). WGS provided particularly strong evidence that Nepalese UN peacekeeping troops brought cholera to Haiti (154)(155)(156). The intricacies of this outbreak could not have been solved and the source of the contamination would not have been conclusively identified without the use of a WGS typing approach.…”

Section: Vibrio Choleraementioning

confidence: 93%

Navigating Microbiological Food Safety in the Era of Whole-Genome Sequencing

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYThe epidemiological investigation of a foodborne outbreak, including identification of related cases, source attribution, and development of intervention strategies, relies heavily on the ability to subtype the etiological agent at a high enough resolution to differentiate related from nonrelated cases. Historically, several different molecular subtyping methods have been used for this purpose; however, emerging techniques, such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based techniques, that use whole-genome sequencing (WGS) offer a resolution that was previously not possible. With WGS, unlike traditional subtyping methods that lack complete information, data can be used to elucidate phylogenetic relationships and disease-causing lineages can be tracked and monitored over time. The subtyping resolution and evolutionary context provided by WGS data allow investigators to connect related illnesses that would be missed by traditional techniques. The added advantage of data generated by WGS is that these data can also be used for secondary analyses, such as virulence gene detection, antibiotic resistance gene profiling, synteny comparisons, mobile genetic element identification, and geographic attribution. In addition, several software packages are now available to generatein silicoresults for traditional molecular subtyping methods from the whole-genome sequence, allowing for efficient comparison with historical databases. Metagenomic approaches using next-generation sequencing have also been successful in the detection of nonculturable foodborne pathogens. This review addresses state-of-the-art techniques in microbial WGS and analysis and then discusses how this technology can be used to help support food safety investigations. Retrospective outbreak investigations using WGS are presented to provide organism-specific examples of the benefits, and challenges, associated with WGS in comparison to traditional molecular subtyping techniques.

show abstract

“…The current, standard typing technology for V. cholerae, namely, PFGE, had inadequate discriminatory power to distinguish environmental isolates from outbreak-related strains in Southeast Asia. Through multiple, independent genomic epidemiological investigations (197,198,211), the source of the outbreak was conclusively determined to be imported to Haiti by the Nepalese UN peacekeepers, thereby solving an important epidemiological controversy that prior methods could not. The application of genomic epidemiology to other high-profile events, such as the 2011 German E. coli O104:H4 outbreak (212), has cemented the reputation of genomic epidemiology as a powerful new method for outbreak investigation, and it is currently positioned to replace the existing gold-standard methods as the main tool for both surveillance and outbreak response by public health laboratories around the world.…”

Section: Molecular Epidemiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Primer on Infectious Disease Bacterial Genomics

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYThe number of large-scale genomics projects is increasing due to the availability of affordable high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies. The use of HTS for bacterial infectious disease research is attractive because one whole-genome sequencing (WGS) run can replace multiple assays for bacterial typing, molecular epidemiology investigations, and more in-depth pathogenomic studies. The computational resources and bioinformatics expertise required to accommodate and analyze the large amounts of data pose new challenges for researchers embarking on genomics projects for the first time. Here, we present a comprehensive overview of a bacterial genomics projects from beginning to end, with a particular focus on the planning and computational requirements for HTS data, and provide a general understanding of the analytical concepts to develop a workflow that will meet the objectives and goals of HTS projects.

show abstract

Nepalese origin of cholera epidemic in Haiti

Cited by 122 publications

References 10 publications

On the probability of extinction of the Haiti cholera epidemic

On the probability of extinction of the Haiti cholera epidemic

Navigating Microbiological Food Safety in the Era of Whole-Genome Sequencing

A Primer on Infectious Disease Bacterial Genomics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About