@article {1566, title = {Ongoing transmission of trachoma in low prevalence districts in Mozambique: results from four cross-sectional enhanced impact surveys, 2022.}, journal = {Sci Rep}, volume = {14}, year = {2024}, month = {2024 Oct 15}, pages = {22842}, abstract = {

Mozambique is making progress towards elimination of trachoma as a public health problem, but in some districts trachomatous inflammation-follicular (TF) prevalence remains above the 5\% elimination threshold despite years of various interventions, including antibiotic mass drug administration. To characterize transmission in four districts, we incorporated testing of ocular infection and serology into routine trachoma impact surveys (TIS) in August 2022. We examined residents aged >= 1 year for trachoma and collected information on household water, sanitation, and hygiene. Among children aged 1-9 years, we tested conjunctival swabs for Chlamydia trachomatis nucleic acid and dried blood spots for C. trachomatis antibodies. We modeled age-dependent seroprevalence to estimate seroconversion rate (SCR). We examined 4841 children aged 1-9 years. TF prevalence ranged between 1.1 and 6.0\% with three districts below the 5\% threshold. PCR-confirmed infection prevalence ranged between 1.1 and 4.8\%, and Pgp3 seroprevalence ranged between 8.8 and 24.3\%. Pgp3 SCR was 1.9 per 100 children per year in the district with the lowest TF prevalence. Two other districts with TF < 5\% had SCR of 5.0 and 4.7. The district with TF >= 5\% had a SCR of 6.0. This enhanced TIS furthered understanding of transmission in these districts and provides information on additional indicators for monitoring trachoma programs.

}, keywords = {Antibodies, Bacterial, Child, Child, Preschool, Chlamydia trachomatis, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Mozambique, Prevalence, Seroepidemiologic Studies, Trachoma}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-024-71201-z}, author = {Sitoe, Henis Mior and Oswald, William E and Zita, Felizmina and Fall, Mawo and Momade, Tamimo and Adams, Molly W and Flueckiger, Rebecca M and McPherson, Scott and Eyob, Sabrina and Doan, Thuy and Lietman, Thomas M and Arnold, Benjamin F and Wickens, Karana and Gwyn, Sarah and Martin, Diana L and Kasubi, Mabula and Boyd, Sarah and Bakhtiari, Ana and Jimenez, Cristina and Solomon, Anthony W and Harding-Esch, Emma M and Mwingira, Upendo J and Ngondi, Jeremiah M} } @article {226, title = {Diversity of Chlamydia trachomatis in Trachoma-Hyperendemic Communities Treated With Azithromycin.}, journal = {Am J Epidemiol}, volume = {187}, year = {2018}, month = {2018 09 01}, pages = {1840-1845}, abstract = {

Prior studies have theorized that low chlamydial genetic diversity following mass azithromycin treatments for trachoma may create a population bottleneck that prevents the return of infection, but little empirical evidence exists to support this hypothesis. In this study, a single mass azithromycin distribution was administered to 21 communities in the Gurage Zone of Ethiopia in 2003. All children aged 1-5 years had conjunctival swabs performed before treatment and 2 and 6 months after treatment. All swabs positive for Chlamydia trachomatis at 2 months underwent typing of the gene encoding the major outer membrane protein (ompA) of C. trachomatis, as did the same number of swabs per community from the pretreatment and 6-month visits. Diversity of ompA types, expressed as the reciprocal of Simpson{\textquoteright}s index, was calculated for each community. In total, 15 ompA types belonging to the A and B genovars were identified. The mean diversity was 2.11 (95\% confidence interval: 1.79, 2.43) before treatment and 2.16 (95\% confidence interval: 1.76, 2.55) 2 months after treatment (P = 0.78, paired t test). Diversity of ompA was not associated with the prevalence of ocular chlamydia (P = 0.76) and did not predict subsequent changes in the prevalence of ocular chlamydia (P = 0.32). This study found no evidence to support the theory that ompA diversity is associated with transmission of ocular chlamydia.

}, keywords = {Anti-Bacterial Agents, Azithromycin, Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins, Chlamydia trachomatis, Genetic Variation, Humans, Trachoma}, issn = {1476-6256}, doi = {10.1093/aje/kwy071}, author = {Chin, Stephanie A and Morberg, Daniel P and Alemayehu, Wondu and Melese, Muluken and Lakew, Takele and Chen, Michael C and Zhou, Zhaoxia and Doan, Thuy and Cevallos, Vicky and Lietman, Thomas M and Keenan, Jeremy D} } @article {211, title = {Current and future molecular diagnostics for ocular infectious diseases.}, journal = {Curr Opin Ophthalmol}, volume = {27}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Nov}, pages = {561-567}, abstract = {

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Confirmation of ocular infections can pose great challenges to the clinician. A fundamental limitation is the small amounts of specimen that can be obtained from the eye. Molecular diagnostics can circumvent this limitation and have been shown to be more sensitive than conventional culture. The purpose of this review is to describe new molecular methods and to discuss the applications of next-generation sequencing-based approaches in the diagnosis of ocular infections.

RECENT FINDINGS: Efforts have focused on improving the sensitivity of pathogen detection using molecular methods. This review describes a new molecular target for Toxoplasma gondii-directed polymerase chain reaction assays. Molecular diagnostics for Chlamydia trachomatis and Acanthamoeba species are also discussed. Finally, we describe a hypothesis-free approach, metagenomic deep sequencing, which can detect DNA and RNA pathogens from a single specimen in one test. In some cases, this method can provide the geographic location and timing of the infection.

SUMMARY: Pathogen-directed PCRs have been powerful tools in the diagnosis of ocular infections for over 20 years. The use of next-generation sequencing-based approaches, when available, will further improve sensitivity of detection with the potential to improve patient care.

}, keywords = {Acanthamoeba, Amebiasis, Chlamydia Infections, Chlamydia trachomatis, Eye Infections, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Metagenome, Molecular Diagnostic Techniques, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Toxoplasma, Toxoplasmosis}, issn = {1531-7021}, doi = {10.1097/ICU.0000000000000311}, author = {Doan, Thuy and Pinsky, Benjamin A} }