Insights on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis population structure associated with migrants from Portuguese-speaking countries over a three-year period in greater Lisbon, Portugal: Implications at the public health level

• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Catarina
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Gomes, Pedro, Taveira, Ricardo, Silva, Carla, Maltez, Fernando, Macedo, Rita, Costa, Catarina, Couvin, David, Rastogi, Nalin, Viveiros, Miguel, Perdigão, João, Portugal, Isabel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.18/6351
• topic: Tuberculosis; M. Tuberculosis; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Lisbon; Portugal; MIRU-VNTR; Migrants; RDRio; Spoligotyping; Infecções Respiratórias

Tuberculosis among foreign-born patients is a key indicator of country-level epidemiological profiles and, of an increasing concern in Europe given the more intensified migratory waves of refugees. Since Portugal presents a lower immigrant-associated TB incidence rate when compared to other European countries, we sought to characterize the epidemiology and transmission dynamics among the foreign-born population coming from Portuguese-speaking countries that are associated with higher TB incidences. In the present study we analyzed 133 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates obtained from foreign-born individuals over a three-year period in Lisbon, Portugal, using molecular epidemiological methods such as spoligotyping and 24-loci MIRU-VNTR. Moreover, all strains were subjected to drug susceptibility testing. The genetic profiles obtained suggest that strain importation from Portuguese speaking countries plays a less important role in TB epidemiology but instead argue in favor of a high degree of penetrance of Portuguese endemic strains to the migrant population, including multidrug resistant strains, which is particularly relevant to active screening programs.