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Abstract Background Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected individuals in Sub Saharan Africa including Tanzania. Provision of isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) is one of the public health interventions to reduce the burden of TB among HIV infected persons. However there is limited information about the influence of IPT on TB incidence in Tanzania. This study aimed at ascertaining the effect of IPT on TB incidence and to determine risk factors for TB among HIV positive adults in Dar es Salaam region. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted using secondary data of HIV positive adults receiving care and treatment services in Dar es Salaam region from 2011 to 2014. TB incidence rate among HIV positive adults on IPT was compared to those who were not on IPT during the follow up period. Risk factors for incident TB were estimated using multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model. Results A total of 68,378 HIV positive adults were studied. The median follow up time was 3.4 (IQR = 1.9–3.8) years for patients who ever received IPT and 1.3 (IQR = 0.3–1.3) years among those who never received IPT. A total of 3124 TB cases occurred during 114,926 total person-years of follow up. The overall TB incidence rate was 2.7/100 person-years (95%CI; 2.6–2.8). Patients on IPT had 48% lower TB incidence rate compared to patients who were not on IPT (IRR = 0.52, 95%CI; 0.46–0.59). Factors associated with higher risk for incident TB included; being male (aHR = 1.8, 95% CI; 1.6–2.0), WHO stage III (aHR = 2.7, 95% CI; 2.3–3.3) and IV (aHR = 2.4, 95% CI; 1.9–3.1),being underweight (aHR = 1.7, 95% CI; 1.5–1.9) while overweight (aHR = 0.7, 95% CI; 0.6–0.8), obese (aHR = 0.5, 95% CI; 0.4–0.7), having baseline CD4 cell count between 200 and 350 cells/μl (aHR = 0.7, 95% CI; 0.6–0.8) and CD4 count above 350 cells/μl (aHR = 0.5, 95% CI; 0.4–0.6) were associated with lower risk of developing TB. Conclusion Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) has shown to be effective in reducing TB incidence among HIV infected adults in Dar es Salaam. More efforts are needed to increase the provision and coverage of IPT.

Background: In Tanzania, HIV testing data are reported aggregately for national surveillance, making it difficult to accurately measure the extent to which newly diagnosed persons are entering care, which is a critical step of the HIV care cascade. We assess, at the individual level, linkage of newly diagnosed persons to HIV care.Methods: An expanded two-part referral form was developed to include additional variables and unique identifiers. The expanded form contained a corresponding number for matching the two-parts between testing and care. Data were prospectively collected at 16 health facilities in the Magu District of Tanzania.Results: The records of 1,275 unique people testing HIV positive were identified and included in our analysis. Of these, 1,200 (94.1%) responded on previous testing history, with 184 (15.3%) testing twice or more during the pilot, or having had a previous HIV positive test. Three-quarters (932; 73.1%) of persons were linked to care during the pilot timeframe. Health service provision in the facility carrying out the HIV test was the most important factor for linkage to care; poor linkage occurred in facilities where HIV care was not immediately available.Conclusions: It is critical for persons newly diagnosed with HIV to be linked to care in a timely manner to maximize treatment effectiveness. Our findings show it is feasible to measure linkage to care using routinely collected data arising from an amended national HIV referral form. Our results illustrate the importance of utilizing individual-level data for measuring linkage to care, as repeat testing is common.

HIV care and treatment settings provide an opportunity to reach people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) with prevention messages and services. Population-based surveys in sub-Saharan Africa have identified HIV risk behaviors among PLHIV, yet data are limited regarding HIV risk behaviors of PLHIV in clinical care. This paper describes the baseline sociodemographic, HIV transmission risk behaviors, and clinical data of a study evaluating an HIV prevention intervention package for HIV care and treatment clinics in Africa. The study was a longitudinal group-randomized trial in 9 intervention clinics and 9 comparison clinics in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania (N = 3538). Baseline participants were mostly female, married, had less than a primary education, and were relatively recently diagnosed with HIV. Fifty-two percent of participants had a partner of negative or unknown status, 24% were not using condoms consistently, and 11% reported STI symptoms in the last 6 months. There were differences in demographic and HIV transmission risk variables by country, indicating the need to consider local context in designing studies and using caution when generalizing findings across African countries. Baseline data from this study indicate that participants were often engaging in HIV transmission risk behaviors, which supports the need for prevention with PLHIV (PwP).ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01256463.