Investigation of an international water polo tournament in Czechia as a potential source for early introduction of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant into Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, November 2021.
Rudin, Christoph; Bollen, Nena; Hong, Samuel Let al.
2023 • In Euro Surveillance: Bulletin Européen sur les Maladies Transmissibles, 28 (45)
[en] BackgroundThe earliest recognised infections by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (Pango lineage B.1.1.529) in Belgium and Switzerland suggested a connection to an international water polo tournament, held 12-14 November 2021 in Brno, Czechia.AimTo study the arrival and subsequent spread of the Omicron variant in Belgium and Switzerland, and understand the overall importance of this international sporting event on the number of infections in the two countries.MethodsWe performed intensive forward and backward contact tracing in both countries, supplemented by phylogenetic investigations using virus sequences of the suspected infection chain archived in public databases.ResultsThrough contact tracing, we identified two and one infected athletes of the Belgian and Swiss water polo teams, respectively, and subsequently also three athletes from Germany. In Belgium and Switzerland, four and three secondary infections, and three and one confirmed tertiary infections were identified. Phylogenetic investigation demonstrated that this sporting event played a role as the source of infection, but without a direct link with infections from South Africa and not as a superspreading event; the virus was found to already be circulating at that time in the countries involved.ConclusionThe SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant started to circulate in Europe several weeks before its identification in South Africa on 24 November 2021. Accordingly, it can be assumed that travel restrictions are usually implemented too late to prevent the spread of newly detected SARS-CoV-2 variants to other regions. Phylogenetic analysis may modify the perception of an apparently clear result of intensive contact tracing.
Disciplines :
Microbiology
Author, co-author :
Rudin, Christoph ; University Children's Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Bollen, Nena; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Hong, Samuel L; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Wegner, Fanny; Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland ; Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Politi, Lida; Department of Microbial Resistance and Infections in Health Care Settings, Directorate of Surveillance and Prevention of Infectious Diseases, Hellenic National Public Health Organization (EODY), Athens, Greece ; European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden
Mellou, Kassiani; Directorate of Epidemiological Surveillance and Intervention for Infectious Diseases, Hellenic National Public Health Organization (EODY), Athens, Greece
Geenen, Caspar; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Gorissen, Sarah; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Verhasselt, Bruno; Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Durkin, Keith ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences biomédicales et précliniques ; Laboratory of Human Genetics, GIGA Research Institute, Liège, Belgium
Henin, Coralie; Federal testing platform COVID-19, Université libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium
Logist, Anne-Sophie; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Dellicour, Simon; Spatial Epidemiology Lab (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium ; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Resa, Tobias; Cantonal Office of Public Health Basel-Landschaft, Liestal, Switzerland
Stadler, Tanja; SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland ; Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland
Maes, Piet; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Cuypers, Lize; Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Reference Centre for Respiratory Pathogens, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
André, Emmanuel; Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Reference Centre for Respiratory Pathogens, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Laboratory of Clinical Microbiology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Egli, Adrian; Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland ; Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (https://spsp.ch ; Applied Microbiology Research, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland ; Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Baele, Guy; Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Investigation of an international water polo tournament in Czechia as a potential source for early introduction of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant into Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, November 2021.
Publication date :
November 2023
Journal title :
Euro Surveillance: Bulletin Européen sur les Maladies Transmissibles
ISSN :
1025-496X
eISSN :
1560-7917
Publisher :
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Sweden
Volume :
28
Issue :
45
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funding text :
We wish to thank the water polo athletes and other individuals who allowed us to use their story and laboratory results for having given consent. We also wish to thank the team coaches of the German (Sven Schulz) and South African (Candice Williams, Delaine Mentoor) water polo teams and the team physician (Dr Ralf Schauer) of the German team for providing us with information so relevant for our investigation. We also thank all participating laboratories and members of the Belgian COVID-19 Genomics consortium, the health inspectors involved in contact tracing, the ‘Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform’ (www.spsp.ch), all sequencing microbiology laboratories in Switzerland as part of the Swiss COVID19 surveillance program, as well as the ETH-based sequencing effort S3C (https://bsse.ethz.ch/ cevo/research/sars-cov-2/swiss-sars-cov-2-sequencing-consortium.html) consortia and H2030 (Geneva). Guy Baele acknowledges support from the Internal Funds KU Leuven (Grant No. C14/18/094), the Research Foundation - Flanders (‘Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen’, G0E1420N, G098321N). We also gratefully acknowledge all data contributors, i.e., the Authors and their Originating laboratories responsible for obtaining the specimens, and their Submitting laboratories for generating the genetic sequence and metadata and sharing via the GISAID Initiative, on which this research is based.
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