Genomic Dissection of an Icelandic Epidemic of Respiratory Disease in Horses and Associated Zoonotic Cases.

ABSTRACT: Iceland is free of the major infectious diseases of horses. However, in 2010 an epidemic of respiratory disease of unknown cause spread through the country's native horse population of 77,000. Microbiological investigations ruled out known viral agents but identified the opportunistic pathogen Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus (S. zooepidemicus) in diseased animals. We sequenced the genomes of 257 isolates of S. zooepidemicus to differentiate epidemic from endemic strains. We found that although multiple endemic clones of S. zooepidemicus were present, one particular clone, sequence type 209 (ST209), was likely to have been responsible for the epidemic. Concurrent with the epidemic, ST209 was also recovered from a human case of septicemia, highlight

SUBMITTER: Bjornsdottir S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5539424 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature