Abstract
Few studies have prospectively compared the relative transmissibility and propensity to cause disease of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains with other human-adapted strains of the M. tuberculosis complex. We assessed the effect of Beijing strains on the risk for M. tuberculosis infection and disease progression in 9,151 household contacts of 2,223 culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients in Lima, Peru. Child contacts exposed to Beijing strains were more likely than child contacts exposed to non-Beijing strains to be infected at baseline, by 12 months of follow-up, and during follow-up. We noted an increased but nonsignificant tendency for child contacts to develop TB. Beijing strains were not associated with TB in adult contacts. These findings suggest that Beijing strains are more transmissible in children than are non-Beijing strains.
Highlights
Few studies have prospectively compared the relative transmissibility and propensity to cause disease of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains with other human-adapted strains of the M. tuberculosis complex
Progression to Active TB After we adjusted for potential confounders, we found the HR for TB among child contacts exposed to an index patient with Beijing strains compared with nonBeijing strains to be 1.45
Children exposed to Beijing strains were more likely than children exposed to other strains to progress to TB, the relative risk of disease progression was not statistically significant
Summary
Few studies have prospectively compared the relative transmissibility and propensity to cause disease of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains with other human-adapted strains of the M. tuberculosis complex. We assessed the effect of Beijing strains on the risk for M. tuberculosis infection and disease progression in 9,151 household contacts of 2,223 culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients in Lima, Peru. Several studies have suggested that the Beijing genotype is more common among young persons and that its frequency declines with age [18,19,20,21] To explore these factors, we directly compared the relative transmissibility and propensity to cause disease of Beijing strains with other strains in a cohort study of household contacts of patients with pulmonary TB in Lima, Peru
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