Journal article
Tuberculosis in Ukrainian war refugees and migrants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: a molecular epidemiological study
- Abstract:
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Background: The war in Ukraine has led to significant migration to neighboring countries, raising public health concerns. Notable tuberculosis (TB) incidence rates in Ukraine emphasize the immediate requirement to prioritize approaches that interrupt the spread and prevent new infections.
Methods: We conducted a prospective genomic surveillance study to assess migration's impact on TB epidemiology in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Ukrainian war refugees and migrants, collected from September 2021 to December 2022 were analyzed alongside 1574 isolates obtained from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
Results: Our study revealed alarming results, with historically the highest number of Ukrainian tuberculosis patients detected in the host countries. The increasing number of cases of multidrug-resistant TB, significantly linked with Beijing lineage 2.2.1 (p < 0.0001), also presents substantial obstacles to control endeavors. The genomic analysis identified the three highly related genomic clusters, indicating the recent TB transmission among migrant populations. The largest clusters comprised war refugees diagnosed in the Czech Republic, TB patients from various regions of Ukraine, and incarcerated individuals diagnosed with pulmonary TB specialized facility in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, pointing to a national transmission sequence that has persisted for over 14 years.
Conclusions: The data showed that most infections were likely the result of reactivation of latent disease or exposure to TB before migration rather than recent transmission occurring within the host country. However, close monitoring, appropriate treatment, careful surveillance, and social support are crucial in mitigating future risks, though there is currently no evidence of local transmission in EU countries.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.1MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s44197-023-00166-5
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- Pages:
- 35-44
- Publication date:
- 2023-12-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-11-08
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2210-6014
- ISSN:
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2210-6006
- Pmid:
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38048026
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1578174
- Local pid:
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pubs:1578174
- Deposit date:
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2023-12-11
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Dohál et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2023, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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