Hepatitis A outbreak predominantly affecting men who have sex with men in Northern Ireland, October 2008 to July 2009

We describe an outbreak of hepatitis A which evolved in Northern Ireland between October 2008 and July 2009, against a background of large concurrent hepatitis A outbreaks in various parts of Europe. Thirty-eight cases were defined as outbreak cases using a stratified case definition; 36 were males...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inEuro surveillance : bulletin européen sur les maladies transmissibles Vol. 16; no. 9; p. 12
Main Authors Sfetcu, O, Irvine, N, Ngui, S L, Emerson, C, McCaughey, C, Donaghy, P
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Sweden Centre Europeen pour la Surveillance Epidemiologique du SIDA (European Centre for the Epidemiological Monitoring of AIDS) 03.03.2011
Subjects
Adult
Contact Tracing
Disease Notification
Disease Outbreaks
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Gays & lesbians
Genotype
Genotype & phenotype
Hepatitis
Hepatitis A - diagnosis
Hepatitis A - epidemiology
Hepatitis A - virology
Hepatitis A virus - classification
Hepatitis A virus - genetics
Homosexuality, Male
Humans
Immunization
Ireland - epidemiology
Male
Middle Aged
Polymerase Chain Reaction
RNA, Viral - blood
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Surveys and Questionnaires
Young Adult
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:We describe an outbreak of hepatitis A which evolved in Northern Ireland between October 2008 and July 2009, against a background of large concurrent hepatitis A outbreaks in various parts of Europe. Thirty-eight cases were defined as outbreak cases using a stratified case definition; 36 were males with a median age of 29 years and of the 28 males whose sexual orientation was known, 26 were men who have sex with men(MSM). Detailed descriptive epidemiology data collected through standardised questionnaires, together with sequencing of a 289 bp fragment of the VP1/2PA region of the virus, significantly aided the understanding of the spread of the outbreak when non-MSM cases occurred. The sequence of the outbreak strain, genotype IA, was indistinguishable from that involved in a large outbreak in the Czech Republic. Although seeded in a generally susceptible Northern Ireland population, the outbreak remained mostly contained in MSM, showing this sub-population to be the most vulnerable despite ongoing hepatitis A vaccination programmes in genito-urinary medicine clinics.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1560-7917
1025-496X
1560-7917
DOI:10.2807/ese.16.09.19808-en