1. Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Sporadic Shiga Toxin–Producing Escherichia coli Enteritis, Ireland, 2013–2017
- Author
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Paul Hynds, M. Boudou, Eimear Cleary, Coilin Oh Aiseadha, Jean O'Dwyer, P McKeown, and Patricia Garvey
- Subjects
Microbiology (medical) ,Veterinary medicine ,Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Sporadic Shiga Toxin–Producing Escherichia coli Enteritis, Ireland, 2013–2017 ,Epidemiology ,Crude incidence ,Infectious and parasitic diseases ,RC109-216 ,Enteritis ,Escherichia coli ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,medicine ,Humans ,media_common.cataloged_instance ,European union ,Child ,bacteria ,Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli ,Escherichia coli Infections ,VTEC ,space-time scanning ,media_common ,Sporadic Shiga Toxin–Producing Escherichia coli Enteritis ,Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli ,biology ,Incidence ,Research ,verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli ,enteric infections ,Spatial epidemiology ,Shiga toxin ,medicine.disease ,STEC ,food safety ,Infectious Diseases ,spatial epidemiology ,Georeference ,sporadic infection ,Shiga toxin–producing E. coli ,biology.protein ,Medicine ,Public Health ,Ireland ,clustering - Abstract
The Republic of Ireland regularly reports the highest annual crude incidence rates of Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) enteritis in the European Union, ≈10 times the average. We investigated spatiotemporal patterns of STEC enteritis in Ireland using multiple statistical tools. Overall, we georeferenced 2,755 cases of infection during January 2013–December 2017; we found >1 case notified in 2,340 (12.6%) of 18,641 Census Small Areas. We encountered the highest case numbers in children 0–5 years of age (n = 1,101, 39.6%) and associated with serogroups O26 (n = 800, 29%) and O157 (n = 638, 23.2%). Overall, we identified 17 space-time clusters, ranging from 2 (2014) to 5 (2017) clusters of sporadic infection per year; we detected recurrent clustering in 3 distinct geographic regions in the west and mid-west, all of which are primarily rural. Our findings can be used to enable targeted epidemiologic intervention and surveillance.
- Published
- 2021