A molecular epidemiologic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis among Filipino patients in a suburban community in the Philippines.

Abstract

This is the first molecular epidemiology study to show the distribution of genotypes of the M. tuberculosis strains, systematically and prospectively sampled, of the patient population in a suburban community in the Philippines. The combination of spoligotyping and 15 MIRU-VNTR identified 11 clusters and 79 genotypes (68 unique strains) with the highest HGDI at 0.970. High case rate of TB among young people in this community suggests the high transmission of infection. However, in the absence of significant association between clustering and age, the interpretation of observed high cluster rate warrants caution, and requires further molecular and epidemiological observation.