Avian mycobacteria represent a potential danger to the human population in areas where effective control of tuberculosis has been achieved, but where tuberculosis is still present in poultry. During the period 1957-67, a total of 44 cases of pulmonary and non-pulmonary disease in man caused by avian mycobacteria were recorded in Czechoslovakia. The source of infection was reliably established in only a small number of cases.The strains of bacteria isolated were, therefore, subjected to serological analysis using Schaefer's method of direct agglutination of bacterial suspensions by type-specific rabbit antisera. This procedure made it possible to differentiate true avian mycobacteria (serotypes I and II) from Runyon group III nonchromogens. The majority of the cultures isolated from man, and also a large proportion of those from cattle and swine, consisted of serotypes I and II, which are those of Mycobacterium avium.The possibility of classifying avian and atypical mycobacteria by means of agglutination procedures represents a valuable tool in the study of the epidemiology of mycobacterial diseases. Evidence was presented which indicated that, in Czechoslovakia, patients with tuberculosis due to avian mycobacteria acquire their infection mainly from animal sources.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1965

[Nontuberculous myobacterial infections in children and adolescents].

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Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in Prague: analysis by restriction fragment length polymorphism.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns, the distribution of different Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated consecutively from 75 tuberculosis patients who resided in Prague and had culture-confirmed cases during a 4-month period in 1995. METHODS: The insertion sequence IS6110-based RFLP analysis of M. tuberculosis isolates was carried out. RESULTS: There were a total of 75 patients with various forms of tuberculosis (54 males; 21 females). The sources of M. tuberculosis isolates were sputum (n = 64), pleura or lymph node drainage (n = 8), and urine (n = 3). Fifty-three of the patients (70.7%) had isolates with unique RFLP patterns, while 22 (29.3%) had isolates that belonged to seven clusters of related RFLP patterns. The seven clusters consisted of four groups of two patients, two groups of four patients, and one group of six patients. Most of the patients whose isolates fell within a clustered RFLP pattern lived in different quarters of the city and had no identifiable contacts with other patients whose isolates had the same pattern. CONCLUSIONS: The finding that isolates from most patients (70.7%) had unique rather than clustered RFLP patterns suggests that endogenous reactivation rather than exogenous transmission is the major determinant of most of the tuberculosis cases in Prague. The occurrence of seven distinct clusters comprising 29.3% of the isolates suggests that approximately one third of cases developed active tuberculosis from recent exogenous transmission.

Adult↗