• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Integrated genomic surveillance enables tracing of person-to-person SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains during community transmission and reveals extensive onward transmission of travel-imported infections, Germany, June to July 2021
  • Contributor: Houwaart, Torsten; Belhaj, Samir; Tawalbeh, Emran; Nagels, Dirk; Fröhlich, Yara; Finzer, Patrick; Ciruela, Pilar; Sabrià, Aurora; Herrero, Mercè; Andrés, Cristina; Antón, Andrés; Benmoumene, Assia; Asskali, Dounia; Haidar, Hussein; von Dahlen, Janina; Nicolai, Jessica; Stiller, Mygg; Blum, Jacqueline; Lange, Christian; Adelmann, Carla; Schroer, Britta; Osmers, Ute; Grice, Christiane; Kirfel, Phillipp P.; [...]
  • imprint: European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), 2022
  • Published in: Eurosurveillance
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.es.2022.27.43.2101089
  • ISSN: 1560-7917
  • Keywords: Virology ; Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ; Epidemiology
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>Tracking person-to-person SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the population is important to understand the epidemiology of community transmission and may contribute to the containment of SARS-CoV-2. Neither contact tracing nor genomic surveillance alone, however, are typically sufficient to achieve this objective.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Aim</jats:title> <jats:p>We demonstrate the successful application of the integrated genomic surveillance (IGS) system of the German city of Düsseldorf for tracing SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains in the population as well as detecting and investigating travel-associated SARS-CoV-2 infection clusters.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>Genomic surveillance, phylogenetic analysis, and structured case interviews were integrated to elucidate two genetically defined clusters of SARS-CoV-2 isolates detected by IGS in Düsseldorf in July 2021.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>Cluster 1 (n = 67 Düsseldorf cases) and Cluster 2 (n = 36) were detected in a surveillance dataset of 518 high-quality SARS-CoV-2 genomes from Düsseldorf (53% of total cases, sampled mid-June to July 2021). Cluster 1 could be traced back to a complex pattern of transmission in nightlife venues following a putative importation by a SARS-CoV-2-infected return traveller (IP) in late June; 28 SARS-CoV-2 cases could be epidemiologically directly linked to IP. Supported by viral genome data from Spain, Cluster 2 was shown to represent multiple independent introduction events of a viral strain circulating in Catalonia and other European countries, followed by diffuse community transmission in Düsseldorf.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title> <jats:p>IGS enabled high-resolution tracing of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in an internationally connected city during community transmission and provided infection chain-level evidence of the downstream propagation of travel-imported SARS-CoV-2 cases.</jats:p> </jats:sec>
  • Access State: Open Access