TY - JOUR AU - Lillebaek, Troels AU - Andersen, Åse B. AU - Dirksen, Asger AU - Glynn, Judith R. AU - Kremer, Kristin T1 - Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing Genotype T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2003 VL - 9 IS - 12 SP - 1553 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Molecular epidemiologic studies of strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are currently conducted worldwide. The genetically distinct Beijing family of strains has been associated with large outbreaks of tuberculosis, increased virulence, and multidrug resistance. However, in this first population-based search for Beijing strains in the Danish DNA fingerprint database, analysis of 97% of all culture-positive tuberculosis patients in 1992 to 2001, showed that 2.5% of 3,844 patients, 1.0% of Danish-born patients and 3.6% of immigrants (from 85 countries) had Beijing strains. No Beijing strains were found among 201 strains from Danish-born patients sampled in the 1960s, and no evidence of an increase in Beijing strains was found over time. The true prevalence of Beijing strains worldwide is unknown because only a fraction of global strains have been analyzed. KW - Mycobacterium tuberculosis KW - molecular epidemiology KW - genotype KW - Beijing family KW - W-strain KW - IS6110 RFLP KW - Denmark DO - 10.3201/eid0912.030276 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/9/12/03-0276_article ER - End of Reference