Health Protection Service, Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
Euro Surveill. 2011 Mar 3;16(9):19808.
We describe an outbreak of hepatitis A which evolved in Northern Ireland between October 2008 and July 2009, against a background of large concurrent hepatitis A outbreaks in various parts of Europe. Thirty-eight cases were defined as outbreak cases using a stratified case definition; 36 were males with a median age of 29 years and of the 28 males whose sexual orientation was known, 26 were men who have sex with men(MSM). Detailed descriptive epidemiology data collected through standardised questionnaires, together with sequencing of a 289 bp fragment of the VP1/2PA region of the virus, significantly aided the understanding of the spread of the outbreak when non-MSM cases occurred. The sequence of the outbreak strain, genotype IA, was indistinguishable from that involved in a large outbreak in the Czech Republic. Although seeded in a generally susceptible Northern Ireland population, the outbreak remained mostly contained in MSM, showing this sub-population to be the most vulnerable despite ongoing hepatitis A vaccination programmes in genito-urinary medicine clinics.
我们描述了 2008 年 10 月至 2009 年 7 月期间在北爱尔兰发生的甲型肝炎暴发疫情，当时欧洲各地同时发生了多起甲型肝炎暴发疫情。采用分层病例定义，确定了 38 例暴发病例；36 例为男性，中位年龄为 29 岁，在已知性取向的 28 名男性中，26 名为男男性接触者（MSM）。通过标准问卷收集的详细描述性流行病学数据，以及对病毒 VP1/2PA 区 289 个碱基片段的测序，在非 MSM 病例发生时，大大有助于了解疫情的传播。暴发菌株的序列为基因型 IA，与捷克共和国的一次大规模暴发的序列相同。尽管在一般易感的北爱尔兰人群中播种，但疫情主要仍局限于 MSM，尽管在男男性接触者性病诊所中持续进行甲型肝炎疫苗接种计划，但这一亚人群仍最为脆弱。
