Pathogen profiling for disease management and surveillance

The use of pathogen profiles in the management of disease could integrate typing and epidemiological data to enable the early detection of hospital infections and real-time global epidemiological surveillance of pathogens. This article outlines approaches to the translation of pathogen genotyping and microbial genomics into formats that are suitable for communicable disease management, surveillance and control. The usefulness of rapid pathogen genotyping is widely recognized, but its effective interpretation and application requires integration into clinical and public health decision-making. How can pathogen genotyping data best be translated to inform disease management and surveillance? Pathogen profiling integrates microbial genomics data into communicable disease control by consolidating phenotypic identity-based methods with DNA microarrays, proteomics, metabolomics and sequence-based typing. Sharing data on pathogen profiles should facilitate our understanding of transmission patterns and the dynamics of epidemics.