Migration and tuberculosis transmission in Hamburg, Germany: insights from 25 years of molecular epidemiology
Nicole Ullrich, Roland Diel, Karen Meywald-Walter, Christian Schwarzbach, Matthias I Gröschel, Martin Kuhns, Inna Friesen, Stefan Niemann, Viola Dreyer · 2026
Read Migration and tuberculosis transmission in Hamburg, Germany: insights from 25 years of molecular epidemiology by Nicole Ullrich, Roland Diel, Karen Meywald-Walter, Christian Schwarzbach, Matthias I Gröschel, Martin Kuhns, Inna Friesen, Stefan Niemann, Viola Dreyer (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13595784.txt.
Description
Nicole Ullrich and eight co-authors traced tuberculosis strains in Hamburg over 25 years in a 2026 paper. In low-incidence countries, imported strains from higher-incidence regions shape local patterns. The team sequenced the genomes of 3,131 tuberculosis strains collected from 1997 to 2021 and tied them to patients' origins.
One lineage, L4, dominated at about three-quarters of cases but slid from 84 to 63 percent across the period, while L3 rose from five to eighteen percent. The shifts tracked more foreign-born patients, not stronger spread of any lineage. L4 still caused most clusters, though its sublineages differed in spread. The authors argue for strain-level genomic watch in migrant-receiving cities.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Nicole Ullrich, Roland Diel, Karen Meywald-Walter, Christian Schwarzbach, Matthias I Gröschel, Martin Kuhns, Inna Friesen, Stefan Niemann, Viola Dreyer |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 35 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |