TY - JOUR
T1 - Effective interventions and decline of antituberculosis drug resistance in Eastern Taiwan, 2004-2008
AU - Chen, Yi Ting
AU - Lee, Jen Jyh
AU - Chiang, Chen Yuan
AU - Yang, Gee Gow
AU - Tsai, Yeong Chu
AU - Lee, Yeong Sheng
AU - Lin, Chih Bin
PY - 2012/2/23
Y1 - 2012/2/23
N2 - Background: The Taiwan health authority recently launched several tuberculosis (TB) control interventions, which may have an impact on the epidemic of drug-resistant TB. We conducted a population-based antituberculosis drug resistance surveillance program in Eastern Taiwan to measure the proportions of notified TB patients with anti-TB drug resistance and the trend from 2004 to 2008. Methods and Findings: All culture-positive TB patients were enrolled. Drug susceptibility testing results of the first isolate of each TB patient in each treatment course were analyzed. In total, 2688 patients were included, of which 2176 (81.0%) were new TB cases and 512 (19.0%) were previously treated cases. Among the 2176 new TB cases, 97 (4.5%) were retreated after the first episode of TB treatment within the study period. The proportion of new patients with any resistance, isoniazid resistance but not multidrug-resistant TB (resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin, MDR-TB), and MDR-TB was 16.4%, 7.5%, and 4.0%, respectively, and that among previously treated cases was 30.9%, 7.9%, and 17.6%, respectively. The combined proportion of any resistance decreased from 23.3% in 2004 to 14.3% in 2008, and that of MDR-TB from 11.5% to 2.4%. Conclusions: The proportion of TB patients with drug-resistant TB in Eastern Taiwan remains substantial. However, an effective TB control program has successfully driven the proportion of drug resistance among TB patients downward.
AB - Background: The Taiwan health authority recently launched several tuberculosis (TB) control interventions, which may have an impact on the epidemic of drug-resistant TB. We conducted a population-based antituberculosis drug resistance surveillance program in Eastern Taiwan to measure the proportions of notified TB patients with anti-TB drug resistance and the trend from 2004 to 2008. Methods and Findings: All culture-positive TB patients were enrolled. Drug susceptibility testing results of the first isolate of each TB patient in each treatment course were analyzed. In total, 2688 patients were included, of which 2176 (81.0%) were new TB cases and 512 (19.0%) were previously treated cases. Among the 2176 new TB cases, 97 (4.5%) were retreated after the first episode of TB treatment within the study period. The proportion of new patients with any resistance, isoniazid resistance but not multidrug-resistant TB (resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin, MDR-TB), and MDR-TB was 16.4%, 7.5%, and 4.0%, respectively, and that among previously treated cases was 30.9%, 7.9%, and 17.6%, respectively. The combined proportion of any resistance decreased from 23.3% in 2004 to 14.3% in 2008, and that of MDR-TB from 11.5% to 2.4%. Conclusions: The proportion of TB patients with drug-resistant TB in Eastern Taiwan remains substantial. However, an effective TB control program has successfully driven the proportion of drug resistance among TB patients downward.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0031531
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0031531
M3 - Article
C2 - 22384034
AN - SCOPUS:84863147000
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 7
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 2
M1 - e31531
ER -
