Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing outbreak in a school in Marseille, France, 2012

Abstract

Between January and September 2012, a teacher and four students at a technical college in Marseille, France, developed pulmonary tuberculosis. All Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from these cases were identical and belonged to the Beijing strain family, multispacer sequence type 72, a rare genotype identified only once in our laboratory in the previous two years. This report highlights once more the potential for M. tuberculosis Beijing strains to cause outbreaks, this time in a school setting.