TY - JOUR AU - Harth, Erika AU - Matsuda, Luis AU - Hernández, Cristina AU - Rioseco, Maria L. AU - Romero, Jaime AU - González-Escalona, Narjol AU - Martínez-Urtaza, Jaime AU - Espejo, Romilio T. T1 - Epidemiology of Vibrio parahaemolyticus Outbreaks, Southern Chile T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2009 VL - 15 IS - 2 SP - 163 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Disease outbreaks caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Puerto Montt, Chile, began in 2004 and reached a peak in 2005 at 3,600 clinical cases. Until 2006, every analyzed case was caused by the serovar O3:K6 pandemic strain. In the summer of 2007, only 475 cases were reported; 73% corresponded to the pandemic strain. This decrease was associated with a change in serotype of many pandemic isolates to O3:K59 and the emergence of new clinical strains. One of these strains, associated with 11% of the cases, was genotypically different from the pandemic strain but contained genes that were identical to those found on its pathogenicity island. These findings suggest that pathogenicity-related genes were laterally transferred from the pandemic strain to one of the different V. parahaemolyticus groups comprising the diverse and shifting bacterial population in shellfish in this region. KW - Vibrio parahaemolyticus KW - shellfish KW - Chile KW - outbreaks KW - lateral transfer KW - research DO - 10.3201/eid1502.071269 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/2/07-1269_article ER - End of Reference