New paper (Gandhi): Casual Contact in Drug-Resistant TB Transmission
New paper led by Neel Gandhi in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine: Role of Casual Contact in Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Transmission: A Molecular Epidemiology Study. The study applied universal whole genome sequencing to isolates from 251 of 305 persons diagnosed with second-line drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in metropolitan Durban, South Africa, from June 2018 to December 2022, pairing sequences with named contacts and GPS coordinates of homes, clinics, and community locations. Among the 141 participants (56%) who clustered genotypically, 69 (49%) were epidemiologically linked through casual contact, compared with 13 (9%) linked through close contact. Living within 1 km was associated with clustering (odds ratio 17.9), as were person-to-person links (odds ratio 5.38).
