Optimisation of Salmonella genotyping and epidemiological data analysis for detection and investigation of outbreaks

被称为沙门氏菌的细菌是食源性腹泻疾病的最重要原因。它们偶尔会导致潜在的致命败血症，特别是在幼儿和有潜在疾病的人中。我们估计，澳大利亚每年发生8万多例沙门氏菌感染病例，给社区造成3700万美元的损失。沙门氏菌分为2000多种不同的类型，但一种名为鼠伤寒沙门氏菌的细菌引起了大约40%的感染，其余的大部分是由其他几种沙门氏菌引起的。这意味着很难区分来自一个源头(暴发)的沙门氏菌感染病例和来自另一个源头的病例。如果没有这些信息，是否很难追踪来源，通常是未充分煮熟的肉类或鸡肉，以及准备后被沙门氏菌污染的另一种食品。有几种现有的沙门氏菌指纹识别方法，但它们速度很慢，或者不能很好地区分不同的菌株，无法快速识别疫情。这意味着往往不能及时确定受污染食品的来源，以防止更多病例发生。我们的目标是开发一种更快、更具区分性的沙门氏菌指纹识别系统，该系统基于新的技术，可以识别在不同菌株的不同组合中出现的许多小基因序列。此外，我们还将开发电子扫描工具，将沙门氏菌菌株的指纹与感染它们的人的信息联系起来，如食物类型和他们吃过的地方，以识别表明共同来源的模式或集群。这项工作做得越快，就能越早找到和消除受污染食品的来源，就能防止更多的病例。这对公众健康具有重要影响--它将提高食品安全，减少疾病和经济损失。

Bacteria known as salmonella are the most important causes of food-borne diarrhoeal disease. They occasionally cause potentially fatal septicaemia, especially in young children and people with underlying disease. We estimate that more than 80,000 cases of salmonella infection occur in Australia, each year, at a cost to the community of $37 million. Salmonella are divided into more than 2000 different types, but one - called Typhimurium - causes about 40% of infections and a few others cause most of the rest. This means that is difficult to distinguish cases of salmonella infection that have originated from one source (an outbreak) from cases that have originated from another. Without this information, is it hard to track the source, which is usually inadequately cooked meat or chicken another food that has been contaminated with salmonella after preparation. There are several existing methods for fingerprinting salmonella, but they are quite slow or do not distinguish different strains well enough to identify outbreaks quickly. This means that sources of contaminated food are often not identified in time to prevent more cases occurring. We aim to develop a faster and more discriminatory system for fingerprinting salmonella, based on novel technology that can identify many small genetic sequences that occur in different combinations in different strains. As well, we will develop electronic scanning tools that will link the fingerprints of the salmonella strains with information about the people infected with them, such as the types of food and places where they have eaten, to identify patterns or clusters that indicate a common source. The more rapidly this can be done the sooner the source of contaminated food can be found and eliminated and additional cases can be prevented. This has important implications for public health - it will increase food safety and reduce illness and economic loss.