People who start antiretroviral treatment early, regardless of their CD4 count, are just as likely to stick to their treatment plan as those who begin their treatment when their CD4 count is low. The mixed methods paper led by the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and...
Simple effective tools to monitor the long treatment of tuberculosis (TB) are lacking. Easily measured host derived biomarkers have been identified but need to be validated in larger studies and different population groups. Here we investigate the early response in IP-10 levels (between day 0...
The GeneXpert is a molecular test for tuberculosis (TB) which is much more sensitive than the mainstay of diagnosis in most parts of the world, sputum smear microscopy. South Africa was one of the first countries to implement it as the first-line diagnostic for TB....
In this non-randomized study in Kampala, Uganda, we implemented an SMS reminder service to help TB patients to remember to take their drugs and to offer them a line of communication to the clinic. The service was rated highly by the participants but was underpowered...
The UNAIDS' HIV this month contains abstracts or summaries of articles and reviews from scientific journals that are carefully filtered from a selection of close to 1000 articles and reviews over a period of one month. The article "Treatment decisions and mortality in HIV-positive presumptive smear-negative...
Brouwer M, Katamba A, Katabira ET, van Leth F. BMC Infect Dis. 2017 May 3;17(1):325. doi: 10.1186/s12879-017-2425-6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28468649 ...
The Xpert™ MTB/RIF (XP) has a higher sensitivity than sputum smear microscopy (70% versus 35%) for TB diagnosis and has been endorsed by the WHO for TB high burden countries to increase case finding among HIV co-infected presumptive TB patients. Its impact on the diagnosis...
This paper examines the effects of an intervention that expanded access to low-cost, government-sponsored, community-based playgroups in rural Indonesia. Instrumental variables and difference-in-differences models indicate that while the intervention raised enrollment rates and durations of enrollment for everyone, on average, there was little impact on...
South Africa diagnoses almost 20,000 patients with Rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis each year. A research team comprising Helen Cox (University of Cape Town), AIGHD researchers Anja van’t Hoog and Frank Cobelens, and other colleagues assessed the impact of the Xpert MTB/RIF test (a rapid test for tuberculosis and...
Hart- en vaatziekten komen vaker voor bij hiv-positieve patiënten in vergelijking met de algemene bevolking. In dit artikel bespreken de auteurs factoren die een rol spelen bij het ontstaan van hart- en vaatziekten bij mensen met hiv. Daarnaast gaat men in op belangrijke pijlers in...