Genomic Surveillance for Salmonella-Causing Invasive Disease and Enteric Fever in Thailand

Orapan Sripichai of the National Institute of Health of Thailand in Thailand will engage a national network of laboratories for the genomic surveillance of Salmonella, involving sequencing clinical isolates to characterize strains, virulence factors and mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. Salmonella infection is prevalent in Thailand and can be life-threatening. The emergence of multidrug-resistant Salmonella strains in Southeast Asia is an additional major concern. They will collect approximately 1,500 clinical isolates from 77 provincial hospitals across Thailand over one year, and train local laboratory scientists and bioinformaticians to produce and analyze genomics data. The data will be uploaded to a standard repository in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and will help to guide prevention and control measures.