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Streptococcus suis: a new emerging or an old neglected zoonotic pathogen?

    Marcelo Gottschalk

    † Author for correspondence

    Streptococcus suis Research Laboratory & International Reference Laboratory for S. suis Serotyping, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Département de Pathologie et Microbiologie, Université de Montréal, CP 5000, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada.

    ,
    Jianguo Xu

    State Key Laboratory for Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Diseases Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, Changping Disrict, Beijing 102206, People’s Republic of China.

    ,
    Cynthia Calzas

    Laboratory of Immunology & Streptococcus suis Research Laboratory, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Département de Pathologie et Microbiologie, Université de Montréal, CP 5000, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada.

    &
    Mariela Segura

    Laboratory of Immunology, Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, Département de Pathologie et Microbiologie, Université de Montréal, CP 5000, St-Hyacinthe, Québec, Canada.

    Published Online:https://doi.org/10.2217/fmb.10.2

    Infections caused by Streptococcus suis are considered a global and an economical problem in the swine industry. Moreover, S. suis is an agent of zoonosis that afflicts people in close contact with infected pigs or pork-derived products. Although sporadic cases of S. suis infections in humans (mainly meningitis) have been reported during the last 40 years, a large outbreak due to this pathogen emerged in the summer of 2005 in China. The severity of the infection in humans during the outbreak, such as a shorter incubation time, more rapid disease progression and higher rate of mortality, attracted a lot of attention from the scientific community and the general press. In fact, the number of publications on S. suis (including the number of reported human cases) has significantly increased during recent years. In this article we critically review the present knowledge on S. suis infection in humans, we discuss the hypotheses that may explain the 2005 outbreak and the repercussion of such an episode on the scientific community.

    Papers of special note have been highlighted as: ▪ of interest ▪▪ of considerable interest

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