London: Researchers in Britain have used genetic analysis of the tuberculosis (TB) bacteria to trace the fatal spread of multidrug-resistant TB between patients.

DNA sequencing of the bacteria revealed how a 44-year-old man who died of TB in 2012 caught the drug-resistant infection from a healthcare worker who had worked in South Africa, when both were admitted on the same medical ward four years earlier, said the study reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.