Two diphtheria sub-clusters with autochthonous cases in Germany and Poland within a Corynebacterium diphtheriae ST-574 outbreak, 2022 to July 2025

Affiliations

• ¹ These authors contributed equally to this work and share first/last authorship.
• ² ECDC Fellowship Programme, Field Epidemiology path (EPIET), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden.
• ³ Postgraduate Training for Applied Epidemiology, Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
• ⁴ Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
• ⁵ NGS-Core Unit, Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority, Oberschleißheim, Germany.
• ⁶ Department of Sera and Vaccines Evaluation, National Institute of Public Health NIH – National Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
• ⁷ Gesundheitsamt Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
• ⁸ Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Al Kasr Al Aini, Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt.
• ⁹ Local Public Health Authority Havelland, Brandenburg, Germany.
• ¹⁰ Department of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and Surveillance, National Institute of Public Health NIH – National Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland.
• ¹¹ WHO Collaborating Centre for Diphtheria, Oberschleißheim, Germany.
• ¹² EU Public Health Reference Laboratory for Diphtheria and Pertussis (EURL-PH-EUDIPE), Oberschleißheim, Germany.
• ¹³ National Consiliary Laboratory for Diphtheria, Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority, Oberschleißheim, Germany.