study<\/a> by scientists in the United Kingdom shows \u201cdistinct and intensifying\u201d sexual transmission of shigellosis.<\/p>\nIn the genomic epidemiology study, a team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge analyzed Shigella sonnei isolates collected from 138 laboratories across the country from September 20, 2004, to February 28, 2020. Their aim was to quantify and compare the geospatial spread of S sonnei in different transmission networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Shigella bacteria spread through contaminated food and water and have traditionally been a cause of diarrhea in people who travel to low- and middle-income countries, where shigellosis is endemic, it\u2019s become increasingly associated with sexual activity among men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United Kingdom and other high-income countries. Sexual networks have also been associated with the spread of drug-resistant Shigella strains.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this growing and urgent public health threat, the temporal and geographical spread of\u00a0Shigella\u00a0remains poorly understood, including the extent to which spread among MSM and non-MSM communities is distinct and the relative impact of antimicrobial selection in those communities,\u201d the study authors wrote in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.<\/p>\n
More intense transmission<\/p>\n
Of the 3,514 isolates analyzed, 34.1% came from presumptive MSM (pMSM), 36.1% from non-pMSM, and 29.8% came from high-risk travel. The analysis revealed that sexually transmitted S sonnei\u00a0spread faster and transmitted more intensely than other domestically acquired S sonnei.\u00a0In addition, isolates from sexually transmitted shigellosis had greater relative fitness than isolates from high-risk travel transmission.<\/p>\n
The researchers also found that azithromycin-resistant S sonnei had a fitness advantage among pMSM, a finding they suggest may be linked to use of azithromycin for gonorrhea infections prior to 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The authors say the findings highlight a gap in public health management for shigellosis, since traditional recommendations for avoiding it, like washing hands and making sure your food is safe, will have little impact on sexual spread.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe development of alternative interventions to address this public health threat is urgently needed,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rost-9D \/ iStock A new study by scientists in the United Kingdom shows \u201cdistinct and intensifying\u201d sexual transmission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-682797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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