Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in Kaohsiung City located at southern Taiwan, 2000-2008.

Background: We present the first comprehensive analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates circulating in southern Taiwan. In this 9-year population-based study, the TB situation in the Kaohsiung region was characterized by genotypic analysis of 421 MTB isolates.

Methods: All 421 isolates of MTB were analyzed by spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing. Drug-resistance patterns were also analyzed.

Results: The percentage of EAI (East African-Indian) strains increased across sampling years (2000-2008) in southern Taiwan, whereas the proportion of Beijing lineages remained unchanged. Clustering was more frequent with EAI genotype infections (odds ratio = 3.6, p<0.0001) when compared to Beijing genotypes. Notably, MTB resistance to streptomycin (STR) had significantly increased over time, but resistance to other antibiotics, including multidrug resistance, had not. Three major genes (gidB, rpsL and rrs) implicated in STR resistance were sequenced and specific mutations identified.

Conclusions: This study revealed that EAI strains were highly transmissible and that STR resistance has increased between 2000 and 2008 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.