A tale of two settings: The role of the Beijing genotype in the epidemiology of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

摘要

To the Editor: Described as a "template for success" by Hanekom et al. [1] the Beijing genotype of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been associated with hypervirulence, drug resistance, evasion of the bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine and differential immunoregulation [1]. The genotype is itself diverse; accordingly the fact that specific traits have been associated with Beijing only in certain settings may be explained by the variation in the subtypes that predominate in each.