Title
The effect of HIV-related immunosuppression on the risk of tuberculosis transmission to household contacts
Date Issued
01 January 2014
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
University of Chicago Press
Abstract
Background. Coinfection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may modify the risk of transmitting tuberculosis. Some previous investigations suggest that patients coinfected with HIV and tuberculosis are less likely to transmit infection, whereas others do not support this conclusion. Here, we estimated the relative risk of tuberculosis transmission from coinfected patients compared to HIV-negative patients with tuberculosis.Methods. Between September 2009 and August 2012, we identified and enrolled 4841 household contacts of 1608 patients with drug-sensitive tuberculosis in Lima, Peru. We assessed the HIV status and CD4 counts of index patients, as well as other risk factors for infection specific to the index patient, the household, and the exposed individuals. Contacts underwent tuberculin skin testing to determine tuberculosis infection status.Results. After adjusting for covariates, we found that household contacts of HIV-infected tuberculosis patients with a CD4 count ≤250 cells/L were less likely to be infected with tuberculosis (risk ratio = 0.49 [95% confidence interval,. 24-.96]) than the contacts of HIV-negative tuberculosis patients. No children younger than 15 years who were exposed to HIV-positive patients with a CD4 count ≤250 cells/L were infected with tuberculosis, compared to 22% of those exposed to non-HIV-infected patients. There was no significant difference in the risk of infection between contacts of HIV-infected index patients with CD4 counts >250 cells/L and contacts of index patients who were not HIV-infected.Conclusions. We found a reduced risk of tuberculosis infection among the household contacts of patients with active tuberculosis who had advanced HIV-related immunosuppression, suggesting reduced transmission from these index patients. © 2013 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Start page
765
End page
774
Volume
58
Issue
6
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Enfermedades infecciosas Inmunología Ciencias socio biomédicas (planificación familiar, salud sexual, efectos políticos y sociales de la investigación biomédica) Sistema respiratorio
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84895735770
PubMed ID
Source
Clinical Infectious Diseases
ISSN of the container
10584838
Sponsor(s)
Financial support. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant number U19 AI-076217), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U01 AI057786), and the Rose Traveling Fellowship Program in Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health. Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No reported conflicts.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus