%0 Journal Article
%T Prevalence of tuberculosis drug resistance in 10 provinces of China
%A Guang He
%A Yan Zhao
%A Guang Jiang
%A Yu Liu
%A Hui Xia
%A Sheng Wang
%A Li Wang
%A Martien W Borgdorff
%A Marieke J van der Werf
%A Susan van den Hof
%J BMC Infectious Diseases
%D 2008
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2334-8-166
%X Provincial drug resistance surveys included all isolates from newly diagnosed, smear-positive TB patients. Drug susceptibility testing (DST) against isoniazid, rifampicin, streptomycin and ethambutol was carried out in the provincial laboratories. For purposes of quality assurance, a random sample (11.6%) was re-tested by the national reference laboratory (NRL).Of 14,059 patients tested 11,052 (79%) were new TB cases. The weighted mean prevalence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) among all cases was 9.3% (range 2.2%¨C10.4%); 5.4% (range 2.1% ¨C 10.4%) among new cases and 25.6% (range 11.7%¨C36.9%) among previously treated cases. Adjusting the drug resistance proportions using the re-testing results did not change the estimated national mean prevalence significantly. However, in some individual provinces the estimated resistance proportions were greatly influenced, especially among re-treatment patients.MDR-TB levels varied greatly between provinces in China, but on average were high compared to the global estimated average of 4.8%. This study shows the importance of quality-assured laboratory performance. Programmatic management of drug-resistant TB, including high quality DST for patients at high risk of resistance and treatment with second-line drugs, should become the standard, especially in high MDR-TB settings.The emergence of resistance to drugs used to treat tuberculosis, and particularly multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) [1], has become a significant public health problem in a number of countries and an obstacle to effective global TB control. The emergence of drug resistant Myobacterium tuberculosis is associated with ineffective treatment of tuberculosis, leading to acquired resistance and transmission of drug-resistant strains. With an estimated MDR-TB proportion of 4.8% among incident TB cases globally, almost half a million (489,139 (95% CI 455,093¨C614,215)) cases of MDR-TB are estimated to emerge world-wide every year [1].Treatment of
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/166