Identifying areas and risk groups with localised Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission in northern England from 2010 to 2012: spatiotemporal analysis incorporating highly discriminatory genotyping data.

Background: Information on geographical variation in localised transmission of TB can inform targeting of disease control activities. The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of TB attributable to localised transmission for the period 2010-2012 in northern England and to identify case characteristics associated with spatiotemporal-genotypical clusters.

Methods: We combined genotyping data with spatiotemporal scan statistics to define an indicator of localised TB transmission and identified factors associated with localised TB transmission thus defined in a multivariable logistics regression model.

Measles outbreak in Greater Manchester, England, October 2012 to September 2013: epidemiology and control.

This paper describes the epidemiology and management of a prolonged outbreak of measles across the 2.7 million conurbation of Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. Over a period of one year (from October 2012 to September 2013), over a thousand suspected measles cases (n = 1,073) were notified across Greater Manchester; of these, 395 (37%) were laboratory-confirmed, 91 (8%) were classed as probable, 312 (29%) were classed as possible and 275 (26%) excluded.

Defining travel-associated cases of enteric fever.

There is no internationally recognized case-definition for travel-associated enteric fever in non-endemic countries. This study describes the patterns of case reporting between 2007 and 2011 as travel-associated or not from the surveillance data in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (EWNI), before and after a change in the time component of the case-definition in January 2011. It examines in particular the role of a time frame based on the reported typical incubation period in defining a case of travel-associated enteric fever.