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. 2012 Jul;16(7):924-7.
doi: 10.5588/ijtld.11.0816. Epub 2012 May 7.

Assessing capacity for diagnosing tuberculosis in children in sub-Saharan African HIV care settings

M J A Reid  1 , S Saito, R Fayorsey, R J Carter, E J Abrams
Affiliations

Assessing capacity for diagnosing tuberculosis in children in sub-Saharan African HIV care settings

M J A Reid et al. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2012 Jul.

Abstract

Research on the prevalence of pediatric-specific tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics in sub-Saharan Africa is scarce. We assessed the availability of pediatric TB diagnostic tests at 651 pediatric human immunodeficiency virus care and treatment sites across nine African countries: 54% of the sites had access to sputum culture capacity and 51% to chest X-ray services. While 87% of sites had access to smear microscopy, only 6% had the capacity to perform sputum induction and 5% to perform gastric aspirate. These findings confirm that diagnostic resources for the accurate diagnosis of pediatric TB are limited. Capacity-building initiatives to improve sputum collection in children are urgently required.

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