Abstract
Introduction: Correctional facilities are recognised “breeding ground” for infectious diseases. As The World Health Organization reported, the incidence of infectious diseases in prison’s population is 10–100 times higher than in general population. The incidence of tuberculosis among correctional inmates in Poland in 2008 was 270/100,000, that is around 10 times higher than among non-prisoners. Materials and methods: The study included 57 M. tuberculosis isolates from patients in Polish prisons in 2004–2008 (5% of all diagnosed TB patient in Polish prisons 2004–2008). Primary isolation was performed with Löwenstein-Jensen (L-J) medium, species identification was done with the niacin test and gene probes test. Bacterial DNA was extracted from the L-J medium slants with the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method. Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains were analyzed with two methods: screening for epidemiological discrimination of M. tuberculosis—spoligotyping and highthroughput—MIRU/VNTR. Results: Isolates that are grouped in clusters (33 isolates) were analyzed by means of MIRU/VNTRs. In MIRU/VNTRs all strains showed different genetic patterns. Most isolates of the prisoners were grouped into two clusters: T1 53 and H3 50. Conclusions: 1. MIRU/VNTR is a high-throughput method. 2. MIRU/VNTR is a promising method to diagnose TB transmission in Polish jails. 3. To identify the probable source of transmission, molecular analysis of strains from patients of the general population is needed.