
Evaluating the Impact of a Community Health Worker Program in Neno, Malawi
HIV/AIDSHypertension8 moreThis protocol concerns the implementation and evaluation of an intervention designed to realign the existing cadre of Community Health Workers (CHW) in Neno District, Malawi to better support the care needs of the clients they serve. The proposed intervention is a 'Household Model' where CHWs will be assigned to households, rather than HIV or TB specific patients, and will be trained to provide support for a wider range of conditions including HIV, hypertension, diabetes, and pediatric malnutrition. The new model is designed to improve retention in care for clients with chronic, non-communicable diseases, along with increased uptake of women's health services and treatment for pediatric malnutrition, while sustaining the high retention rates for clients in the HIV program. Eleven sites (health centres and hospitals) were arranged into six clusters by estimated size of the catchment area populations, with a population range of 11,680 to 26,260 and an average population of 20,400. The order in which the intervention will be rolled out across the sites will be randomized so that the intervention can be evaluated in a stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial. These clusters were grouped based mostly on geographic location but also on catchment area sizes, in order to maximize feasibility of training for the CHW team and not overload CHW training sessions with too many trainees.

Increasing Notifications of Tuberculosis From Private Practitioners
TuberculosisTuberculosis (TB) is the third leading cause of death in Indonesia. Disturbingly, the prevalence survey showed that over half of TB cases in Indonesia are not notified. The huge private sector in Indonesia, comprising an estimated 70,000 practitioners, provides over 50% of health care but notifies less than 10% of all diagnosed TB cases. INSTEP2 is a cluster randomised controlled intervention trial. The multi-component public health intervention will be administered to private practitioners (PP) in Community Health Centre (CHC) clusters. The change in the number of TB notifications over 12 months before, and 12 months after, the intervention will be compared between study arms. Hypothesis related to the Primary Efficacy Endpoint: A tailored intervention in PPs will increase TB notifications.

DOT Selfie: A Mobile Technology Intervention to Evaluate Treatment Adherence Among Tuberculosis...
TuberculosisThis is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine whether Video Observed Treatment (VDOT) using social internet bundle incentives for tuberculosis (TB) is an effective way to improve medication adherence in TB treatment, compared with standard in-person treatment (home-/ community-based). The study will include two study arms: one will receive TB treatment using the standard in-person DOT, and the other through VDOT. All patients (regardless of study arm) will receive daily TB treatment under home- or community-based observation . For patients in the In-person DOT arm, this will be observed and recorded daily by a study nurse. Patients in the VDOT arm however, will be required to record and upload their daily medication intake using a mobile phone App. As a form of incentive, these patients will be rewarded with social internet bundles for every 7 consecutive video uploads. Additionally, they will be sent motivational text messages to encourage treatment compliance. Regardless of study arm, all patients will have 2,4, and 6 monthly clinic visits for clinical and/or sputum assessments. Each patient will also complete a Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) questionnaire at treatment completion.

Interrupting HIV and TB Stigma in the Household in Uganda
HivTuberculosis4 moreThe investigators will carry out a prospective, household cluster-randomized, implementation trial evaluating a complex, multi-component, social and behavioral intervention designed to normalize the acceptance of HIV testing in the household and increase diagnosis of HIV.

Impact of LTBI Treatment on Glucose Tolerance and Chronic Inflammation
Latent TuberculosisDiabetes Mellitus1 moreThis study will be investigating the effect of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) treatment on glucose tolerance and low-grade inflammation. Almost a century ago, researchers proposed that diabetes (DM) was associated with increased risk of Tuberculosis infection (TB). A more recent systematic review concluded that DM increases the relative risk for TB 3.1 times. Reversely, TB may affect the glycaemic control; TB is in many cases a chronic infection characterised by long term low-grade inflammation and weight loss, and persons with TB are known to be at risk of hyperglycaemia and DM at time of diagnosis. A latent infection with the m.tuberculosis bacteria is "silent" without symptoms. 1,7 billion have LTBI on a global scale. Event though the infected person does not experience symptoms, increased background inflammation has been shown in LTBI patients in previous studies. We also know that an increase in inflammatory markers precedes clinical development of DM, and that subclinical inflammation contributes to insulin resistance. We hypothesise that LTBI contributes to dysregulated glucose metabolism due to increased low-grade inflammation, and that treatment will reduce low-grade inflammation and improve glucose tolerance.

Cost-effectiveness of Two Forms of DOTS in a Demonstration Area of the DOTS Strategy in Colombia...
TuberculosisPulmonaryTuberculosis ( TB ) remains a major global public health problems and actions to ensure the diagnosis and complete treatment of all cases is the priority for the control of this disease. Despite the availability of effective anti-tuberculosis medications, there are still high levels of nonadherence to treatment. The nonadherence increases the morbidity and mortality of patients, decreases the cure rate, increases the community transmission and the increase of chronically ill patients enables the emergence of multi - drug resistant and increases treatment costs. Despite the knowledge about different forms of cost-effective delivery of DOT (directly observed treatment), recognition of the need to establish the DOT strategy related to the context from local studies, in Colombia and in Cali we hadn't had made studies similar than this one that establish the cost and results of the current DOT delivery strategy and to identify other ways to improve adherence and cure rate for the TB patients at reasonable cost for both: health services and families Therefore, this research aims to compare the cost -effectiveness of current DOT delivery method with an alternative extra- institutional delivery of anti -TB treatment in urban areas of Cali. A cost-effectiveness study was conducted from the institutional and familiar perspective with prospective information collection.

Interaction Study to Assess the Pharmacokinetic Interaction of Oral Administration of Rifapentine...
TuberculosisPrimary Objective: - To evaluate the effect of single and repeated administration of rifapentine given as daily or weekly regimen on steady-state pharmacokinetic parameters of efavirenz, emtricitabine and tenofovir given as a fixed dose combination (ATRIPLA™ ). Secondary Objective: - To evaluate the safety and tolerability of concomitant administration of rifapentine and ATRIPLA™ given to HIV+ patients

PK/PD of Ertapenem In Patients With TB
PK of Ertapenem in TB PatientsRationale: Treatment of multidrug or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR/XDR-TB) is a real challenge as failure in response to treatment and serious side-effects are frequently encountered. New, more effective drugs with less side effects are therefore urgently needed to solve this problem. Although several new drugs against TB are in the pipeline, physicians currently have limited treatment options for treatment of complicated MDR/XDR-TB cases. Therefore, drugs developed and labeled for other infectious diseases are evaluated for TB. Objective: The main objective of this prospective clinical trial is to evaluate pharmacokinetics of a standard dose (2000mg) of ertapenem in TB patients. This clinical trial will provide important information on PK of ertapenem in TB patients for future studies. Data can be used for limited sampling strategies for ertapenem based on a pharmacokinetic population model constructed from the full PK curves of the patients. Study design: A prospective pharmacokinetic study. Study population: 12 TB patients. Intervention: Single dose of 2000mg in a 30 minutes intravenous infusion. Main study parameters/endpoints: The pharmacokinetic parameters (Vd, Cl, AUC, etc) of ertapenem are the primary endpoints of the study. The T>MIC and AUC0-24h/Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) ratio are most likely the best predictive parameters for efficacy of ertapenem treatment and will be calculated for a range of M tuberculosis isolates.

Pharmacokinetics (PK) and Safety of 2 Different Doses of Lopinavir/Ritonavir in in HIV/Tuberculosis...
HIV InfectionsTuberculosisTo assess safety, efficacy and impact of Lopinavir/ritonavir 400/100mg bid or Lopinavir/ritonavir 600/150mg bid in combination with rifampicin-containing anti-TB therapy.

Arginine as an Adjuvant Treatment Against Tuberculosis
TuberculosisHIVThe purpose of this study was to investigate if adjuvant treatment with arginine (the substrate for nitric oxide production) rich food supplements could improve clinical outcome in patients with smear positive tuberculosis by affecting nitric oxide production.