Best approaches to drug-resistance surveillance at the country level

Publication date: Available online 21 October 2016 Source:International Journal of Mycobacteriology Author(s): A.M. Cabibbe, D.M. Cirillo In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to include the endorsed rapid molecular technologies (Xpert MTB/RIF, line probe assays) into surveillance systems and surveys allowed the testing of more tuberculosis (TB) patients for drug resistance at country level than ever before. The whole genome sequencing (WGS) approach is emerging as a more powerful tool for epidemiological and drug-resistant routine surveillances, promising a rapid and simultaneous screening of all the clinically-relevant mutations for the determination of resistance to the first-, second-line, and new anti-TB drugs. In addition, WGS can support the conventional contact tracing for epidemiological studies with high discriminatory power by tracking the circulating strains and their relatedness. These features make WGS, moreso than the conventional molecular tools, an ideal tool to monitor transmission and drug resistance trends in countries, providing deep and wide information in a standardized way. WGS technologies have already been adopted in many supranational and reference laboratories at the centralized level, and several research groups are working to reduce the complexity and costs of these platforms, from sample preparation to the downstream analysis and interpretation of sequencing reads, with the final aim to expand the use of WGS to all labo...
Source: International Journal of Mycobacteriology - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research