Scarlet fever-associated mobile genetic elements in Taiwan
Streptococcus pyogenes (group A Streptococcus, GAS) is a gram-positive human pathogen that causes more than 500,000 deaths annually worldwide. In the past few decades, the global resurgence of scarlet fever and invasive GAS infections have been reported. In Asia, specifically in Hong Kong and China, the emm12- and emm1-type GAS carried the homologs of FHKU.vir and ICE-emm12 were over-presented in scarlet fever cases. This study aims to investigate the scarlet fever-associated mobile genetic elements in various emm-type GAS isolates in Taiwan.