Is There Evidence of the New Variant Chlamydia trachomatis in the United States?

Won H, Ramachandran P, Steece R, Van Der Pol B, Moncada J, Schachter J, Gaydos C.

Source

From the Division of Infectious Diseases, Departments of *Medicine, †Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; ‡Infertility Prevention Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA; §Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN; and ¶University of California, San Francisco, CA.

Abstract

A specific real-time polymerase chain reaction followed by melt curve analysis was developed for the detection of the Swedish variant (nvCT) strain of Chlamydia trachomatis (CT). Surveillance was performed on 476 CT-positive clinical specimens obtained from 15 laboratories around the United States using nucleic acid amplification test assays, which would not miss the nvCT. All were negative for nvCT; thus, there is no evidence of the nvCT in the United States.