Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Oct 21;4(Suppl 2):S29-33.
doi: 10.5588/pha.14.0044.

Tuberculosis in health care workers in Belarus

D Klimuk  1 , H Hurevich  1 , A D Harries  2 , A Babrukevich  1 , K Kremer  3 , R Van den Bergh  4 , C D Acosta  3 , A Astrauko  1 , A Skrahina  1
Affiliations

Tuberculosis in health care workers in Belarus

D Klimuk et al. Public Health Action. .

Abstract

Setting: Tuberculosis (TB), including drug-resistant TB, is a serious problem in Belarus.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of TB among health care workers (HCWs) along with patient characteristics, treatment outcomes and drug resistance patterns between 2008 and 2012.

Design: A retrospective national record review.

Results: There were 116 HCWs with TB. Case notification rates were higher among HCWs than in the general population (349 vs. 40/100 000 in 2012). Most HCWs with TB were nurses (n = 46, 40%) or nurse assistants (n = 37, 32%), female (n = 100, 86%) and aged 25-44 years (n = 84, 72%). Most common places of work for HCWs with TB were multidrug-resistant (MDR-) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) wards (n = 23, 20%), general medical (n = 26, 22%) and non-medical (n = 34, 29%) departments. All HCWs had pulmonary TB, 107 (92%) had new TB and 103 (89%) had negative sputum smears. Of the 38 (33%) with culture and drug susceptibility testing (DST), 28 (74%) had MDR-/XDR-TB. In 109 HCWs evaluated for final treatment outcomes, 97 (89%) were successfully treated, and their results were not affected by DST status.

Conclusion: This study highlights the high prevalence of recorded TB in HCWs in TB health facilities in Belarus: there is a need to better understand and rectify this problem.

Keywords: Belarus; HCWs; SORT IT; operational research; tuberculosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. World Health Organization. Global tuberculosis report 2013. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO; 2013. WHO/HTM/TB/2013.11.
    1. Menzies D, Fanning A, Yuan L, Fitzgerald M. Tuberculosis among HCW. N Eng J Med. 1995;332:92–98. - PubMed
    1. Joshi R, Rungold A L, Menzies D, Pai M. Tuberculosis among health-care workers in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. PLOS MED. 2006;3:e494. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baussano I, Nunn P, Williams B, Pivetta E, Bugiani M, Scano F. Tuberculosis among HCW. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011;17:488–494. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hurevich H, Horbach L, Astrauko A, Kalechitz A, Skrahina A. Modern approach to incidence of tuberculosis among HCW. Advances in Medical Science in Belarus. 2005;10:18–19. [Belorussian]

LinkOut - more resources