Contemporary outbreaks of shigellosis at European arts festivals. Contemporary outbreaks of shigellosis at European arts festivals

Shigellae are subspecies of Escherichia coli that, through the acquisition of plasmid-mediated virulence factors, cause invasive enteric disease in humans characterised by severe gastrointestinal symptoms, including bloody diarrhoea. In addition to the severe disease syndrome caused, Shigellae are becoming increasingly multi-drug resistant worldwide. They cause a significant disease burden, with Shigellae-attributed dysentery being responsible for over one million deaths annually. Although the majority of these deaths occur in developing nations in children less than five years old, developed nations are not immune to Shigellae-derived disease where the monophyletic Shigella sonnei causes outbreaks of moderate to severe disease in both children and adults. The proposed sequencing project is an extension of these studies, and affords the opportunity to study, in real time, epidemic disease of Shigella sonnei in developed nations. Additionally, the data derived from the project will provide crucial public health information for the control and monitoring of this outbreak. http://www.sanger.ac.uk/resources/downloads/bacteria/ These data are part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/