Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in Israel

Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis with IS6110 and DR-r prob es was used to study 69 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates obtained from I sraeli patients and new immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopi a. DNA fingerprinting identified unique patterns for almost all isolates, i ndicating that most patients were infected with a unique strain imported fr om their country of origin and that their latent infection was reactivated in Israel.