Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hi, I am Dr. Charlene
Rodriguez and I am
a practicing pediatrician
specializing in
infectious diseases.
I work in St. Mary's
Hospital in London.
I'm also an academic specializing
in microbial genomics,
and I work at the London
School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine at the
University of Oxford.
In the second part of the talk,
I will walk you through
four case studies
describing bacteria that
cause human disease
and how genomic methods
can be used to track
these pathogens and prevent
further disease spreading.
0:31
The first bacteria we will
consider is Mycobacterium
tuberculosis.
0:37
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
causes the disease tuberculosis
manifesting most commonly
as pulmonary infection.
But TB can also occur as
extra pulmonary disease causing
infections in many
organ systems,
including the lymph nodes,
bone or the brain,
presenting as meningitis.
TB is a global problem,
causing over 1
million deaths per
year in people of all ages.
Once exposed to the bacteria,
your immune system
can either contain
the infecting organism by
mounting an effective
immune response,
or the infection can progress
to cause invasive disease.
TB disease is
problematic because it
requires the prolonged
course of antibiotics,
which are given
in combination to
avoid the development
of resistance.
Mycobacterium
tuberculosis bacteria are
transmitted by airborne spread.
Once a case of TB is identified,
contact tracing must be
performed to identify
other people who may have been
exposed to the index case.
This process often identifies
many more people who've
been exposed and infected,
who need latent TB treatment,
and some who need treatment
for active TB disease.
