Tuberculosis

Care seeking in tuberculosis: results from a countrywide cluster randomised survey in Bangladesh

OBJECTIVES: To explore systematically the care seeking trajectories of tuberculosis (TB) cases up to four subsequent places of care and to assess the type of services provided at each place. METHODS: TB cases detected actively during the 2007-2009 …

Embracing the challenges of HIV-TB co-infection in children

Antiretroviral therapy and tuberculosis: does the regimen matter?

Infection with HIV is one of the strongest drivers of the incidence of tuberculosis. The use of potent combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) decreases the incidence of tuberculosis in HIV-infected patients. Data on whether this effect differs by …

Design of pragmatic trials of tuberculosis interventions

Healthcare workers' challenges in the implementation of tuberculosis infection prevention and control measures in Mozambique

OBJECTIVE: Healthcare Workers (HCWs) have a higher frequency of TB exposure than the general population and have therefore an occupational TB risk that infection prevention and control (IPC) measures aim to reduce. HCWs are crucial in the …

TB diagnostic process management of patients in a referral hospital in Mozambique in comparison with the 2007 WHO recommendations for the diagnosis of smear-negative pulmonary TB and extrapulmonary TB

BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan African countries, the high proportion of smear-negative pulmonary TB (SNTB) and extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) contributes to a delay in TB diagnosis and treatment. We evaluated the TB diagnostic process of adult patients with …

TB diagnostic process management of patients in a referral hospital in Mozambique in comparison with the 2007 WHO recommendations for the diagnosis of smear-negative pulmonary TB and extrapulmonary TB

BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan African countries, the high proportion of smear-negative pulmonary TB (SNTB) and extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) contributes to a delay in TB diagnosis and treatment. We evaluated the TB diagnostic process of adult patients with …

Are routine tuberculosis programme data suitable to report on antiretroviral therapy use of HIV-infected tuberculosis patients?

BACKGROUND: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is lifesaving for HIV-infected tuberculosis (TB) patients. ART-use by these patients lag behind compared to HIV-testing and co-trimoxazole preventive therapy. TB programmes provide the data on ART-use by …

Benchmarking to assess potential under-diagnosis of smear-negative and extrapulmonary Tuberculosis. A case study from Mozambique

No tool exists to identify potential under-diagnosis of smear-negative and extrapulmonary TB. In an ecological study, we used a simple tool plotting percentages of smear-positive pulmonary TB amongst newly diagnosed TB in African region countries and …

Epidemiological surveys embedded in technical assistance to Tuberculosis control Programmes

Many National Tuberculosis Programmes (NTPs) receive Technical Assistance (TA) for the implementation and evaluation of their TB-control strategies. KNCV tuberculosis Foundation (KNCV) in the Netherlands is a TA organization providing assistance for …