[PulseNet Japan: surveillance system for the early detection of diffuse outbreak based on the molecular epidemiological method]

Kansenshogaku Zasshi. 2002 Oct;76(10):842-8. doi: 10.11150/kansenshogakuzasshi1970.76.842.
[Article in Japanese]

Abstract

As the foods are stocked below freezing and widely distributed, a kind of food-borne outbreak which occurs in separate regions or in different time, so called "diffuse outbreak", has been found at the present day. Unless the outbreak is early recognized, the number of victims would increase. Some methods have been developed to analyze the relatedness of bacteria isolated from the patients of enteric infections. PFGE, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, is one of the methods and powerful to discriminate the difference in nucleotide sequences among bacterial genomes. Availability of PFGE analysis is appreciated to examine the linkage of each incident of food-borne infections in epidemiological investigation. A PFGE network, PulseNet Japan, is now under construction among National Institute of Infectious Diseases, local Health Institutes and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Publication types

  • English Abstract

MeSH terms

  • DNA, Bacterial / analysis
  • Disease Outbreaks / statistics & numerical data*
  • Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field
  • Epidemiologic Methods
  • Escherichia coli Infections / diagnosis
  • Escherichia coli Infections / epidemiology
  • Escherichia coli O157
  • Foodborne Diseases / diagnosis*
  • Foodborne Diseases / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Information Services*
  • Japan / epidemiology
  • Molecular Epidemiology

Substances

  • DNA, Bacterial