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Ihssane Ouaddane, Coumba Diouf, Ndiaw Goumballa, Van-Thuan Hoang, Amira Zhor Rim Zinai, Cheikh Sokhna, Philippe Gautret, Nasopharyngeal methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus carriage among pilgrims at the Grand Magal de Touba, Journal of Travel Medicine, Volume 31, Issue 6, August 2024, taae095, https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taae095
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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was clinically identified in 1960 and it produces an altered penicillin-binding protein, encoded by an acquired gene, MecA and its new homologues (MecB, MecC, and MecD).1 Nasal colonization is known to be a risk factor for the development of MRSA-associated disease.
The Grand Magal of Touba (GMT) is an annual religious mass gathering held in Senegal, attracting an estimated 4–5 million participants, including members of the Senegalese diaspora travelling from Europe and the USA. In a study conducted in 2017 among inhabitants from two rural villages in South Senegal (Ndiop and Dielmo), nasopharyngeal carriage of S. aureus as assessed by PCR was 72.7% and 13.9% pilgrims acquired carriage after participating in the GMT.2
In this study, pilgrims were enrolled in Ndiop and Dielmo, and naso-pharyngeal sampling was conducted before and after participation in the GMT, from 2019 to 2022. The DNA was extracted by semi-automated extraction using the EZ1 Advanced XL (Qiagen, Hilden, German) with the DNA Tissue Kit (Qiagen) according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. The DNA was then pre-screened for S. aureus using PCR by amplifying the nucA gene of S. aureus.2 MecA and MecC were then screened in positive samples by real-time PCR using a C1000 Touch™ Thermal Cycle (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA).