Volume 9, Number 10, October 2003

Mass Antibiotic Treatment for Group A Streptococcus Outbreaks in Two Long-Term Care Facilities

Andrea Smith,*† Aimin Li,‡ Ornella Tolomeo,* Gregory J. Tyrell,§† Frances Jamieson,‡ and David Fisman*¶
*City of Hamilton Social and Public Health Services Department, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; †University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta; ‡Canada Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; §Provincial Laboratory for Public Health, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and ¶McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Figure 1. Molecular epidemiology of group A streptococcus (GAS) strains in outbreak 1. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, demonstrating relatedness of group A streptococcal isolates from an person with clinical illness from GAS, a person with chronic colonization with GAS, and asymptomatically colonized facility staff and residents. Lanes 1 and 15 contain an ATCC quality control strain. Lane 14 contains an isolate from another nursing facility, unrelated to outbreak 1. The isolate in lane 2 (large solid arrow) was obtained from index case-patient 2 in January 2001. The isolate in lane 7 (large hollow arrow) was obtained from a person with chronic GAS colonization (resident A) in May 2001. Small solid arrows denote electrophoretically identical GAS strains from other persons with asymptomatic colonization with group A streptococcus in May 2001. Asterisk denotes staff member.

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This page last reviewed September 18, 2003

Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal
National Center for Infectious Diseases
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