Statistical Method to Detect Tuberculosis Outbreaks among Endemic Clusters in a Low-Incidence Setting

Abstract

We previously reported use of genotype surveillance data to predict outbreaks among incident tuberculosis clusters. We propose a method to detect possible outbreaks among endemic tuberculosis clusters. We detected 15 possible outbreaks, of which 10 had epidemiologic data or whole-genome sequencing results. Eight outbreaks were corroborated.

Keywords

• tuberculosis and other mycobacteria
• bacteria
• respiratory infections
• molecular epidemiology
• genotype
• endemic clusters