Search

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a major health challenge in refugee populations. Monitoring the key indicators of TB program performance is essential to improve the effectiveness of TB control in refugee camps. Objective: To investigate trends of TB case notifications and treatment outcomes in refugee settlements in Uganda, 2014-2017. Design: Retrospective descriptive cohort study Settings: Thirty-three health facilities located in 12 refugee settlements Subjects: All TB cases registered from January 1 2014 to December 31 2017 Results: A total of 794 TB cases of whom 63.4% were of age 15-44 years and 2.9% Extrapulmonary TB (EPTB) were registered. TB case notification increased from 89 in 2014 to 452 cases in 2017. From 2014 to 2017: male to female ratio for notification was = 2.1:1; percentage of bacteriologically confirmed new and relapse pulmonary was 73.5% to 90.5%; and TB treatment success rate remained lower at 56.2% to70.8%. On average 32.2% had unfavorable outcomes, including 22% lost to followup (LTFU), 4.5% not evaluated, 3.8% died, and 1.5% had treatment failure. Unsuccessful treatment was significantly associated with EPTB (AOR 11.4 95% CI (1.9-66.5). Conclusion: During the study period: TB case notification continuously increased; TB cases were predominately by male and age 15-44 years; frequency of EPTB remained lower than the national data (7.3%); and TB treatment success was far below the global target (= 90%) which need to be improved. There was higher LTFU, not evaluated and death. Patients with EPTB who are at higher risk for unsuccessful treatment need special support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Proficiency testing (PT) has been hard to set up due to cost limitations and technical capacity. Conventional Xpert MTB/RIF PT programs use liquid and culture spots which require stringent storage and transportation conditions with cross-contamination chances prevalent. These setbacks prompted the use of dried tube specimens (DTS) for Ultra assay PT. For continuity of PT provision, stability of DTS and compatibility with testing protocols when kept for a long period needs to be established., Methods: DTS were prepared from known isolates inactivated using a hot air oven at 85°C. 100μl of bacterial suspensions were aliquoted and dried inside a Biosafety cabinet. Panel validation was done to establish the baseline Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) concentration in terms of cycle threshold (Ct) value. DTS aliquots were shipped to participants to test and report within six weeks. The remaining DTS were kept at 2-8°C and room temperature for one year with testing at six months. Twenty (20) DTS samples per set remaining at one year were heated at 55°C for two weeks before testing. The means of the different samples were compared to validation data using paired t-tests. Boxplots were designed to visualize the differences in the medians of the DTS., Results: Overall mean Ct value increased by 4.4 from the validation to testing after one year at the different storage conditions. Samples heated at 55°C showed a 6.4 Ct difference from validation data. Testing done at six months on 2-8°C stored items showed no statistical difference. At all the remaining testing times and conditions, P-values were less than 0.008 although the absolute mean Ct when compared showed slight increments and accommodated differences for the detection of MTB and rifampicin resistance. Median values for samples stored at 2-8°C were lower compared to those at room temperature., Conclusion: DTS stored at 2-8°C remain more stable for one year compared to higher temperatures and can be consistently used as PT materials in more than one PT round for biannual PT providers., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Kabugo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Uganda introduced Xpert® MTB/RIF assay into its TB diagnostic algorithm in January 2012. In July 2018, this assay was replaced with Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra assay. We set out to compare the tests done and tuberculosis cases detected by Xpert® MTB/RIF and Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra assay in Uganda., Methods: This was a before and after study, with the tests done and TB cases detected between Jan-June 2019 when using Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra assay compared to those done between Jan-June 2018 while using Xpert® MTB/RIF assay. This data was analyzed using Stata version 13, it was summarized into measures of central tendency and the comparison between Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra and Xpert® MTB/RIF was explored using a two-sided T-test which was considered significant if p <0.05., Results: One hundred and twelve (112) GeneXpert sites out of a possible 239 were included in the study. 128,476 (M: 1147.11, SD: 842.88) tests were performed with Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra assay, with 9693 drug-susceptible TB (DS-TB) cases detected (M: 86.54, SD: 62.12) and 144 (M: 1.28, SD: 3.42) Rifampicin Resistant TB cases (RR-TB). Whilst 107, 890 (M: 963.30, SD: 842.88) tests were performed with Xpert® MTB/RIF assay between, 8807 (M: 78.63, SD: 53.29) DS-TB cases were detected, and 147 (M: 1.31, SD: 2.39) RR-TB cases. The Number Need to Test (NNT) to get one TB case was 12 for Xpert® MTB/RIF and 13 for Xpert ®MTB/RIF Ultra. On comparing the two assays in terms of test performance (p = 0.75) and case detection both susceptible TB (p = 0.31) and RR-TB (p = 0.95) were not found statistically significant., Conclusions: This study found no significant difference in test performance and overall detection of DS-TB and RR-TB when using Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra and Xpert® MTB/RIF assays. The health systems approach should be used to elucidate all the probable potential of Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The World Health Organization recommends the scale-up of tuberculosis preventive therapy (TPT) for persons at risk of developing active tuberculosis (TB) as a key component to end the global TB epidemic. We sought to determine the feasibility of integrating testing for latent TB infection (LTBI) using interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) into the provision of TPT in a resource-limited high TB burden setting. We conducted a parallel convergent mixed methods study at four tertiary referral hospitals. We abstracted details of patients with bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis (PBC TB). We line-listed household contacts (HHCs) of these patients and carried out home visits where we collected demographic data from HHCs, and tested them for both HIV and LTBI. We performed multi-level Poisson regression with robust standard errors to determine the associations between the presence of LTBI and characteristics of HHCs. Qualitative data was collected from health workers and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. From February to December 2020 we identified 355 HHCs of 86 index TB patients. Among these HHCs, uptake for the IGRA test was 352/355 (99%) while acceptability was 337/352 (95.7%). Of the 352 HHCs that were tested with IGRA, the median age was 18 years (IQR 10-32), 191 (54%) were female and 11 (3%) were HIV positive. A total of 115/352 (32.7%) had a positive IGRA result. Among HHCs who tested negative on IGRA at the initial visit, 146 were retested after 9 months and 5 (3.4%) of these tested positive for LTBI. At multivariable analysis, being aged ≥ 45 years [PR 2.28 (95% CI 1.02, 5.08)], being employed as a casual labourer [PR 1.38 (95% CI 1.19, 1.61)], spending time with the index TB patient every day [PR 2.14 (95% CI 1.51, 3.04)], being a parent/sibling to the index TB patients [PR 1.39 (95% CI 1.21, 1.60)] and sharing the same room with the index TB patients [PR 1.98 (95% CI 1.52, 2.58)] were associated with LTBI. Implementation challenges included high levels of TB stigma and difficulties in following strict protocols for blood sample storage and transportation. Integrating home-based IGRA testing for LTBI into provision of TB preventive therapy in routine care settings was feasible and resulted in high uptake and acceptability of IGRA tests., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2022 Muchuro et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Second-line drug resistance (SLD) among tuberculosis (TB) patients is a serious emerging challenge towards global control of the disease. We characterized SLD-resistance conferring-mutations among TB patients with rifampicin and/or isoniazid (RIF and/or INH) drug-resistance tested at the Uganda National TB Reference Laboratory (NTRL) between June 2017 and December 2019., Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional secondary data analysis of 20,508 M. tuberculosis isolates of new and previously treated patients' resistant to RIF and/or INH. DNA strips with valid results to characterise the SLD resistance using the commercial Line Probe Assay Genotype MTBDRsl Version 2.0 Assay (Hain Life Science, Nehren, Germany) were reviewed. Data were analysed with STATAv15 using cross-tabulation for frequency and proportions of known resistance-conferring mutations to injectable agents (IA) and fluoroquinolones (FQ)., Results: Among the eligible participants, 12,993/20,508 (63.4%) were male and median (IQR) age 32 (24-43). A total of 576/20,508 (2.8%) of the M. tuberculosis isolates from participants had resistance to RIF and/or INH. These included; 102/576 (17.7%) single drug-resistant and 474/576 (82.3%) multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains. Only 102 patients had test results for FQ of whom 70/102 (68.6%) and 01/102 (0.98%) had resistance-conferring mutations in the gyrA locus and gyrB locus respectively. Among patients with FQ resistance, gyrAD94G 42.6% (30.0-55.9) and gyrA A90V 41.1% (28.6-54.3) mutations were most observed. Only one mutation, E540D was detected in the gyrB locus. A total of 26 patients had resistance-conferring mutations to IA in whom, 20/26 77.0% (56.4-91.0) had A1401G mutation in the rrs gene locus., Conclusions: Our study reveals a high proportion of mutations known to confer high-level fluoroquinolone drug-resistance among patients with rifampicin and/or isoniazid drug resistance. Utilizing routinely generated laboratory data from existing molecular diagnostic methods may aid real-time surveillance of emerging tuberculosis drug-resistance in resource-limited settings., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Despite the limited evidence for its effectiveness, thermal screening at points of entry has increasingly become a standard protocol in numerous parts of the globe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We sought to determine the effectiveness of thermal screening as a key step in diagnosing COVID-19 in a resource-limited setting., Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study based on a review of body temperature and Xpert Xpress SARS CoV-2 test results records for truck drivers entering Uganda through Mutukula between 15th May and 30th July 2020. All records missing information for body temperature, age, gender, and Xpert Xpress SARS CoV-2 status were excluded from the data set. A data set of 7,181 entries was used to compare thermal screening and Xpert Xpress SARS CoV-2 assay test results using the diagnostic statistical test in STATAv15 software. The prevalence of COVID-19 amongst the truck drivers based on Xpert Xpress SARS CoV-2 assay results was determined. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, positive and negative Likelihood ratios were obtained using Xpert Xpress SARS CoV-2 assay as the gold standard., Results: Based on our gold standard test, the proportion of persons that tested positive for COVID-19 was 6.7% (95% CI: 6.1-7.3). Of the 7,181 persons that were thermally screened, 6,844 (95.3%) were male. The sample median age was 38 years (interquartile range, IQR: 31-45 years). The median body temperature was 36.5°C (IQR: 36.3-36.7) and only n (1.2%) had a body temperature above 37.5°C. The sensitivity and specificity of thermal screening were 9.9% (95% CI: 7.4-13.0) and 99.5% (95% CI: 99.3-99.6) respectively. The positive and negative predictive values were 57.8 (95% CI: 46.5-68.6) and 93.9 (95% CI: 93.3-94.4) respectively. The positive and negative Likelihood Ratios (LRs) were 19 (95% CI: 12.4-29.1) and 0.9 (95% CI: 0.88-0.93) respectively., Conclusion: In this study population, the use of Thermal screening alone is ineffective in the detection of potential COVID-19 cases at point of entry. We recommend a combination of screening tests or additional testing using highly sensitive molecular diagnostics such as Polymerase Chain Reaction., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.