Lancet Microbe 2021 08 26;2(8):e386-e396. Epub 2021 May 26.
Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France; National Reference Center for Corynebacteria of the Diphtheriae Complex, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. Electronic address:
Background: An outbreak of diphtheria, declared in Yemen in October, 2017, is ongoing. We did a cross-sectional study to investigate the epidemiological, clinical, and microbiological features of the outbreak.
Methods: Probable cases of diphtheria that were defined clinically and recorded through a weekly electronic diseases early warning system (from 2017, week 22, to 2020, week 17) were used to identify trends of the outbreak (we divided the epidemic into three time periods: May 29, 2017, to June 10, 2018; June 11, 2018, to June 3, 2019; and June 4, 2019, to April 26, 2020). Read More