Department of Infectious Diseases, Public Health Laboratory, Public Health Service of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Department of Medical Microbiology, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Institute for Infection & Immunity (AI&II), location Amsterdam Medical Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Microb Genom. 2023 Apr;9(4). doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.000975.
Distancing measures during the COVID-19 lockdown led to a temporary decrease of casual sex partners among clients of the Centre for Sexual Health (CSH) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We investigated the effect of this change on the genotypic and phenotypic distribution of () isolates from CSH patients. From each positive patient we sequenced one isolate, resulting in 322 isolates which constituted two groups: 181 isolates cultured from 15 January to 29 February 2020 (before the first lockdown) and 141 cultured from 15 May to 30 June 2020 (during the first lockdown). Patient characteristics showed significantly more symptomatic patients and significantly fewer reported sex partners during the lockdown. Phenotypic data showed an increase in low-level azithromycin resistance and ceftriaxone susceptibility during the lockdown, and this remained after the study period. The diversity in sequence types (STs) decreased slightly during the lockdown. A shift occurred from ST 8156 being predominant before lockdown to ST 9362 during lockdown and a remarkably low median SNP distance of 17 SNPs was found between ST 9362 isolates obtained during lockdown. These findings reflect restricted travel and the change in sexual behaviour of CSH clients during the lockdown, with a potentially increased local transmission of the ST 9362 strain during this period, which led to genotypic and phenotypic changes in the population. This shows that public health measures have far-reaching consequences and should be considered in the surveillance of other infectious diseases.
在 COVID-19 封锁期间，采取的社交距离措施导致阿姆斯特丹性健康中心 (CSH) 的客户的偶然性行为伴侣暂时减少。我们调查了这一变化对 CSH 患者 () 分离株的基因型和表型分布的影响。从每个阳性患者中我们测序了一个分离株，共获得 322 个分离株，分为两组：181 个分离株培养于 2020 年 1 月 15 日至 2 月 29 日（第一次封锁前），141 个分离株培养于 2020 年 5 月 15 日至 6 月 30 日（第一次封锁期间）。患者特征显示，在封锁期间，有症状的患者明显增多，报告的性伴侣明显减少。表型数据显示，在封锁期间，低水平阿奇霉素耐药和头孢曲松敏感性增加，并且在研究期间仍然存在。序列型（ST）的多样性在封锁期间略有下降。在封锁前 ST8156 占优势，而在封锁期间 ST9362 占优势，并且在封锁期间获得的 ST9362 分离株之间发现了非常低的中位数 SNP 距离 17 SNPs。这些发现反映了旅行受限和 CSH 客户性行为的变化，ST9362 菌株在这期间的局部传播可能增加，导致 种群的基因型和表型变化。这表明公共卫生措施具有深远的影响，应在其他传染病的监测中加以考虑。
