Ross B C, Johnson P D, Oppedisano F, Marino L, Sievers A, Stinear T, Hayman J A, Veitch M G, Robins-Browne R M
Department of Microbiology and Infectious Disease, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 1997 Oct;63(10):4135-8. doi: 10.1128/aem.63.10.4135-4138.1997.
Mycobacterium ulcerans is an environmental bacterium which causes chronic skin ulcers. Despite significant epidemiological evidence to suggest that water is the source of infection, the organism has never been identified in the environment. Environmental water samples were collected from a small town in which an outbreak of 29 cases had occurred in a 3-year period. These were examined by mycobacterial culture and PCR amplification. Similar to previous studies, M. ulcerans was not cultured from the water samples. However, five samples were positive for M. ulcerans by PCR. These samples were collected from a swamp and a golf course irrigation system within the outbreak area. This is the first time that M. ulcerans has been demonstrated to be present in the environment and supports the postulated epidemiology of disease due to this organism.
溃疡分枝杆菌是一种可导致慢性皮肤溃疡的环境细菌。尽管有大量流行病学证据表明水是感染源,但在环境中从未发现过这种微生物。从一个小镇采集了环境水样,在该小镇的三年时间里发生了29例病例的疫情。这些水样通过分枝杆菌培养和PCR扩增进行检测。与之前的研究相似,水样中未培养出溃疡分枝杆菌。然而,有五个样本通过PCR检测呈溃疡分枝杆菌阳性。这些样本是从疫情区域内的一个沼泽地和一个高尔夫球场灌溉系统采集的。这是首次证明环境中存在溃疡分枝杆菌,并支持了由这种微生物引起的疾病的推测流行病学。