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The impact of HIV infection on tuberculosis transmission in a country with low tuberculosis incidence: a national retrospective study using molecular epidemiology

Winter, JR; Smith, CJ; Davidson, JA; Lalor, MK; Delpech, V; Abubakar, I; Stagg, HR; (2020) The impact of HIV infection on tuberculosis transmission in a country with low tuberculosis incidence: a national retrospective study using molecular epidemiology. BMC Medicine , 18 , Article 385. 10.1186/s12916-020-01849-7. Green open access

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Abstract

Background: HIV is known to increase the likelihood of reactivation of latent tuberculosis to active TB disease; however, its impact on tuberculosis infectiousness and consequent transmission is unclear, particularly in lowincidence settings. Methods: National surveillance data from England, Wales and Northern Ireland on tuberculosis cases in adults from 2010 to 2014, strain typed using 24-locus mycobacterial-interspersed-repetitive-units–variable-number-tandem-repeats was used retrospectively to identify clusters of tuberculosis cases, subdivided into ‘first’ and ‘subsequent’ cases. Firstly, we used zero-inflated Poisson regression models to examine the association between HIV status and the number of subsequent clustered cases (a surrogate for tuberculosis infectiousness) in a strain type cluster. Secondly, we used logistic regression to examine the association between HIV status and the likelihood of being a subsequent case in a cluster (a surrogate for recent acquisition of tuberculosis infection) compared to the first case or a non-clustered case (a surrogate for reactivation of latent infection). Results: We included 18,864 strain-typed cases, 2238 were the first cases of clusters and 8471 were subsequent cases. Seven hundred and fifty-nine (4%) were HIV-positive. Outcome 1: HIV-positive pulmonary tuberculosis cases who were the first in a cluster had fewer subsequent cases associated with them (mean 0.6, multivariable incidence rate ratio [IRR] 0.75 [0.65–0.86]) than those HIV-negative (mean 1.1). Extra-pulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) cases with HIV were less likely to be the first case in a cluster compared to HIVnegative EPTB cases. EPTB cases who were the first case had a higher mean number of subsequent cases (mean 2.5, IRR (3.62 [3.12–4.19]) than those HIV-negative (mean 0.6). Outcome 2: tuberculosis cases with HIV co-infection were less likely to be a subsequent case in a cluster (odds ratio 0.82 [0.69–0.98]), compared to being the first or a non-clustered case. Conclusions: Outcome 1: pulmonary tuberculosis-HIV patients were less infectious than those without HIV. EPTB patients with HIV who were the first case in a cluster had a higher number of subsequent cases and thus may be markers of other undetected cases, discoverable by contact investigations. Outcome 2: tuberculosis in HIV-positive individuals was more likely due to reactivation than recent infection, compared to those who were HIV-negative.

Type: Article
Title: The impact of HIV infection on tuberculosis transmission in a country with low tuberculosis incidence: a national retrospective study using molecular epidemiology
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s12916-020-01849-7
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01849-7
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Tuberculosis, HIV, Co-infection, Transmission, MIRU-VNTR
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health > Infection and Population Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118352
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