South Africa is not the only country experiencing issues with Listeria monocytogenes. Europe has been experiencing a multi-country outbreak since 2015. Like us, they did whole genome sequencing to identify the strain, and like us theirs is an ST6 strain.
However, their death toll is limited to four cases, where the South African outbreak is almost at 70 (as at 11 January 2018).
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control…
A multi-country outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes PCR serogroup IVb, MLST ST6 has been ongoing in the EU/EEA since at least 2015.
Twenty-six cases from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom have been classified as a confirmed microbiological cluster on the basis of whole genome sequencing (WGS) analysis, including core genome multi-locus sequence typing (cgMLST) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based analysis, depending on the country.
Four cases have died (case fatality 15.4%).”
Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
