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Background The risk of progression to tuberculosis (TB) disease is greatest soon after infection, yet disease may occur many years or decades later. However, rates of TB reactivation long after infection remain poorly quantified. Australia has a low incidence of TB and most cases occur among migrants. We explored how TB rates in Australian migrants varied with time from migration, age, and gender. Methods We combined TB notifications in census years 2006, 2011, and 2016 with time- and country-specific estimates of latent TB prevalences in migrant cohorts to quantify postmigration reactivation rates. Results During the census years, 3246 TB cases occurred among an estimated 2 084 000 migrants with latent TB. There were consistent trends in postmigration reactivation rates, which appeared to be dependent on both time from migration and age. Rates were lower in cohorts with increasing time, until at least 20 years from migration, and on this background there also appeared to be increasing rates during youth (15–24 years of age) and in those aged 70 years and above. Within 5 years of migration, annual reactivation rates were approximately 400 per 100 000 (uncertainty interval [UI] 320–480), dropping to 170 (UI 130–220) from 5 to 10 years and 110 (UI 70–160) from 10 to 20 years, then sustaining at 60–70 per 100 000 up to 60 years from migration. Rates varied depending on age at migration. Conclusions Postmigration reactivation rates appeared to show dependency on both time from migration and age. This approach to quantifying reactivation risks will enable evaluations of the potential impacts of TB control and elimination strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pneumonia, specimens are rarely obtained directly from the infection site, the lung, so the pathogen causing infection is determined indirectly from multiple tests on peripheral clinical specimens, which may have imperfect and uncertain sensitivity and specificity, so inference about the cause is complex. Analytic approaches have included expert review of case-only results, case–control logistic regression, latent class analysis, and attributable fraction, but each has serious limitations and none naturally integrate multiple test results. The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study required an analytic solution appropriate for a case–control design that could incorporate evidence from multiple specimens from cases and controls and that accounted for measurement error. We describe a Bayesian integrated approach we developed that combined and extended elements of attributable fraction and latent class analyses to meet some of these challenges and illustrate the advantage it confers regarding the challenges identified for other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The goal of targeted antiretroviral therapy initiation is to minimize disease progression among patients with human immunodeficiency virus while minimizing the therapeutic burden on these patients. We examine whether the effect of delaying therapy initiation from 500 cells/mm³ to 350 or 200 cells/mm³ is modified by age at entry into care. Methods. We used the parametric g-formula to compare 10-year mortality under 3 CD4 cell count thresholds for therapy initiation among 3532 patients who entered care at 1 of 8 sites in the United States between 1998 and 2013. Results are reported separately for patients 18 to 34, 35 to 44, and 45 to 65 years of age at study entry. Results. In the observed data, 10-year mortality was 13% (165 deaths). Mortality increased from 11% under therapy initiation at 500 cells/mm3 to 12% at 350 cells/mm3 (risk difference [RD]: 0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI]: .56, 2.17) and to 14% at 200 cells/mm3 (RD: 2.71; 95% CI: 1.79, 5.38). The effect of delaying therapy became greater with age: RDs comparing the 350-cells/mm3 threshold with the 500-cells/mm3 threshold ranged from -0.03 (95% CI: -0.15, 1.76) for patients 18 to 34 years of age to 0.99 (95% CI: -.27, 1.98) for patients 35 to 44 and to 2.30 (95% CI: 1.29, 5.42) for patients 45 to 65. Conclusions. Delaying therapy increased 10-year mortality in the full cohort. Subgroup analysis highlights that patients entering care at older ages may be more vulnerable to the consequences of delayed ART initiation than younger patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]