Heterogeneity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates in Sunamganj District, Bangladesh.

A total of 111 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from new pulmonary tuberculosis patients, living in the rural Sunamganj district in northern Bangladesh were characterized with IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses and spoligotyping. Only 3 of the isolates belonged to the W-Beijing genotype of M. tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis in contacts need not indicate disease transmission.

Background: Traditional contact investigation is an important tool for controlling tuberculosis. It may also help to indicate drug susceptibility patterns when Mycobacterium tuberculosis cultures are not available. Such investigations often underestimate the degree of transmission found by genotyping, but overestimation may also occur.

Deciphering an outbreak of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

There have been ample warnings that multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) will continue to emerge if countries do not strengthen their control of TB. In low-incidence European countries, however, these warnings have been substantiated mainly by outbreaks in association with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients. The aim of this study was to investigate an outbreak of infection with MDR and drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis that was diagnosed among 20 HIV-negative patients living in Norway.