Spatiotemporal dynamics of sporadic shiga toxin-producing escherichia coli enteritis, Ireland, 2013-2017

Abstract

The Republic of Ireland regularly reports the highest annual crude incidence rates of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) enteritis in the European Union, ≈10 times the average. We investigated spatiotemporal patterns of STEC enteritis in Ireland using multiple statistical tools. Overall, we georeferenced 2, 755 cases of infection during January 2013-December 2017; we found >1 case notified in 2, 340 (12.6%) of 18, 641 Census Small Areas. We encountered the highest case numbers in children 0-5 years of age (n = 1, 101, 39.6%) and associated with serogroups O26 (n = 800, 29%) and O157 (n = 638, 23.2%). Overall, we identified 17 space-time clusters, ranging from 2 (2014) to 5 (2017) clusters of sporadic infection per year; we detected recurrent clustering in 3 distinct geographic regions in the west and mid-west, all of which are primarily rural. Our findings can be used to enable targeted epidemiologic intervention and surveillance.