A high burden of asymptomatic gastrointestinal infections in traditional communities in Papua New Guinea

Horwood, Paul F., Soli, Kevin W., Maure, Tobias, Naito, Yuichi I., Morita, Ayako, Natsuhara, Kazumi, Tadokoro, Kiyoshi, Baba, Jun, Odani, Shingo, Tomitsuka, Eriko, Igai, Katsura, Larkins, Jo-Ann, Siba, Peter M., Pomat, William, McBryde, Emma S., Umezaki, Masahiro, and Greenhill, Andrew R. (2017) A high burden of asymptomatic gastrointestinal infections in traditional communities in Papua New Guinea. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 97 (6). pp. 1872-1875.

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Abstract

Stool samples were collected from 148 healthy adults living a traditional subsistence lifestyle in Papua New Guinea and screened for enteric pathogens using real-time RT-PCR/PCR assays. Enteric pathogens were detected in a high proportion (41%) of individuals. Clear differences were observed in the detection of pathogens between highland and lowland communities. In particular, there was a marked difference in detection rates of norovirus GII (20% and 0%, respectively) and Shigella sp. (15% and 0%, respectively). Analysis of the relationship between enteric pathogen carriage and microbial community composition of participants, using box plots to compare specific normal flora population numbers, did not suggest that gut microbial composition was directly associated with pathogen carriage. This study suggests that enteric pathogens are common in healthy individuals in Papua New Guinean highland communities, presumably acting as a reservoir of infection and thus contributing to a high burden of gastrointestinal illnesses.

Item ID: 51568
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1476-1645
Additional Information:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funders: Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers (WLR), Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Papual New Guinea Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR)
Projects and Grants: WLR LS024, DFAT Partners in Tropical Health, PNGIMR ICRAS internal grant
Date Deposited: 16 Nov 2017 04:37
FoR Codes: 32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3202 Clinical sciences > 320211 Infectious diseases @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9201 Clinical Health (Organs, Diseases and Abnormal Conditions) > 920109 Infectious Diseases @ 100%
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