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. 2014 Jul;18(7):770-3.
doi: 10.5588/ijtld.13.0069.

Trends in childhood drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Africa: a window into the wider epidemic?

H S Schaaf  1 , A C Hesseling  1 , C Rautenbach  2 , J A Seddon  1
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Trends in childhood drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Africa: a window into the wider epidemic?

H S Schaaf et al. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2014 Jul.

Abstract

Childhood tuberculosis (TB) is a marker of TB transmission within a community. We present the fourth consecutive survey of children with culture-confirmed TB at a hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2009 to 2011. In comparison to the previous survey, the rate of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has stabilised and the human immunodeficiency virus infection rate has declined. We also report on the first systematic surveillance of resistance to second-line drugs. Two concerns following from this are the high rate (22%) of ofloxacin resistance in MDR-TB isolates, and the discordance between isolates with an inhA promoter region mutation, usually implying ethionamide (ETH) resistance, and phenotypic ETH results in these isolates showing ETH susceptibility.

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