OBJECTIVES To describe initial registration characteristics of adult and paediatric TB patients at a large, public, integrated TB and HIV clinic in Lilongwe, Malawi, between January 2008 and December 2010. METHODS Routine data on patient with TB category and TB type, stratified by HIV and ART status, were used to explore differences in proportions among TB only, TB/HIV co-infected patients no...

Introduction: Nowadays, despite socio-economic development of communities and controlling majority of communicable diseases, tuberculosis is still one of the main causes of mortality and disability in developing countries. With respect to importance and high incidence of tuberculosis in marginal provinces, the present study aimed to assess the epidemiology of Tuberculosis in Khuzestan provinc...

Up to 50% of persons with HIV and a diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in Thailand die during TB treatment. In a prospective observational study, a team of physicians ascribed the cause of death after reviewing verbal autopsies (interviews of family members about events preceding death), laboratory data, and medical records. Of 849 HIV-infected TB patients enrolled, 142 (17%) died. The cause of dea...

CD 4 + and CD 8 + T lymphocyte counts, naive and memory/effector CD 4 + T subpopulations, and the expression of CD 38 on CD 8 + T lymphocytes were evaluated in four groups: AIDS patients with tuberculosis (HIV/TB, n=14), HIV-1 infected patients (HIV, n=10), HIV-1 negative patients with tuberculosis (TB, n=20) and healthy controls (CTL, n=17). TB and HIV had fewer CD 4 + T cells than CTL, with t...

BACKGROUND Zimbabwe is a Southern African country with a high HIV-TB burden and is ranked 19th among the 22 Tuberculosis high burden countries worldwide. Recurrent TB is an important problem for TB control, yet there is limited information about treatment outcomes in relation to HIV status. This study was therefore conducted in Chitungwiza, a high density dormitory town outside the capital city...

HIV associated TB is a major public health problem. In 2006, it was estimated that there were over 700,000 people who suffered from HIV associated TB, of whom about 200, 000 have died. The burden of HIV associated TB is greatest in Sub-Saharan Africa where the TB epidemic is primarily driven by HIV. There has been steady progress made in reducing the burden of HIV in TB patients with an increas...

With its emphasis on task shifting and multi-trained and skilled outreach teams the primary healthcare (PHC) re-engineering strategy in South Africa depends on the training, knowledge and attitudes of community health workers (CHWs) to provide a variety of TB/HIV services. The aim of this exploratory research was to assess TB/ HIV-related training, knowledge and attitudes of CHWs. Interviews we...

BACKGROUND Cytokines are the hallmark of immune response to different pathogens and often dictate the disease outcome. HIV infection and tuberculosis (TB) are more destructive when confronted together than either alone. Clinical data related to the immune status of HIV-TB patients before the initiation of any drug therapy is not well documented. This study aimed to collect the baseline informat...

BACKGROUND Over the last decade tuberculosis (TB) incidence and mortality in Brazil have been steadily declining. However, this downward trend has not been observed among HIV-infected patients. We describe the epidemiological and clinical profile of TB patients by HIV status using the Brazilian National Surveillance System. METHODS All TB diagnoses with HIV status information between January ...

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most common and deadly infectious diseases in humans. Due to widespread poverty, inequity, conflict, suboptimal health services many countries, impact HIV/AIDS pandemic, TB/HIV co-infected patients frequently test negative for TB with direct microscopy, posing diagnostic challenges. Traditional HIV-associated diagnosis complex, expensive, time-consumi...