HIV-infected presumptive tuberculosis patients without tuberculosis: How many are eligible for antiretroviral therapy in Karnataka, India?
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.002How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- ART eligibility; ART initiation criteria; HIV-infected presumptive TB patients; HIV-infected TB suspects; Operational research; WHO 2013 ART guidelines
- Abstract
For certain subgroups within people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [active tuberculosis (TB), pregnant women, children <5 years old, and serodiscordant couples], the World Health Organization recommends antiretroviral therapy (ART) irrespective of CD4 count. Another subgroup which has received increased attention is “HIV-infected presumptive TB patients without TB”. In this study, we assess the proportion of HIV-infected presumptive TB patients eligible for ART in Karnataka State (population 60 million), India. This was a cross-sectional analysis of data of HIV-infected presumptive TB patients diagnosed in May 2015 abstracted from national TB and HIV program records. Of 42,585 presumptive TB patients, 28,964 (68%) were tested for HIV and 2262 (8%) were HIV positive. Of the latter, 377 (17%) had active TB. Of 1885 “presumptive TB patients without active TB”, 1100 (58%) were already receiving ART. Of the remaining 785 who were not receiving ART, 617 (79%) were assessed for ART eligibility and of those, 548 (89%) were eligible for ART. About 90% of “HIV-infected presumptive TB patients without TB” were eligible for ART. This evidence supports a public health approach of starting all “HIV-infected presumptive TB patients without TB” on ART irrespective of CD4 count in line with global thinking about ‘test and treat’.
- Copyright
- © 2016 Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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TY - JOUR AU - Ajay M.V. Kumar AU - Anil Singarajipura AU - Balaji Naik AU - Deepak K. Guddemane AU - Yogesh Patel AU - Suresh Shastri AU - Sunil Kumar AU - Rajesh Deshmukh AU - B.B. Rewari AU - Anthony David Harries PY - 2016 DA - 2016/01/25 TI - HIV-infected presumptive tuberculosis patients without tuberculosis: How many are eligible for antiretroviral therapy in Karnataka, India? JO - Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health SP - 11 EP - 19 VL - 7 IS - 1 SN - 2210-6014 UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.002 DO - 10.1016/j.jegh.2015.12.002 ID - Kumar2016 ER -