Quantification of multidrug-resistant bacilli in sputum during the first 8 weeks of treatment.

Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. To quantify in sputum during the first 8 weeks of pulmonary multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) treatment. We enrolled consecutive adults with pulmonary MDR-TB treated according to national guidelines.

Agreement of Middle brook 7H10 with Lowenstein Jensen and accuracy of the Sensititre MYCOTB plate using either method as a reference standard for Mycobacterium tuberculosis first line drug susceptibility testing.

Introduction: Although Sensititre Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MYCOTB) plate offers both drug susceptibility testing (DST) and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) results, it has not been evaluated against both Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) and Middlebrook 7H10 (MB7H10) DST methods at standard critical concentrations.

Materials And Methods: We analyzed 76 M. tuberculosis isolates consisting of 54 isolates from the Uganda National TB drug resistance survey done December 2009-February 2011 and 22 isolates from the World Health Organization External Quality Assessment panel for the year 2011.

Feasibility of establishing a biosafety level 3 tuberculosis culture laboratory of acceptable quality standards in a resource-limited setting: an experience from Uganda.

Background: Despite the recent innovations in tuberculosis (TB) and multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) diagnosis, culture remains vital for difficult-to-diagnose patients, baseline and end-point determination for novel vaccines and drug trials. Herein, we share our experience of establishing a BSL-3 culture facility in Uganda as well as 3-years performance indicators and post-TB vaccine trials (pioneer) and funding experience of sustaining such a facility.

Methods: Between September 2008 and April 2009, the laboratory was set-up with financial support from external partners.

Rifampicin resistance mutations in the 81 bp RRDR of rpoB gene in Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates using Xpert® MTB/RIF in Kampala, Uganda: a retrospective study.

Background: Introduction of Xpert® MTB/RIF assay has revolutionalised the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) by simultaneously detecting the bacteria and resistance to rifampicin (rif), a surrogate marker for multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) as well as one of the principal first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs. In general, rpoB mutations can be found in 96.1% of rif-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) strains worldwide and these mutations usually are located in a region at the 507-533rd amino acid residuals (81 bp) in the MTB rpoB gene, which is referred to as Rifampicin-resistance-determining region (RRDR).

Sensititre MYCOTB MIC plate for testing Mycobacterium tuberculosis susceptibility to first- and second-line drugs.

For Mycobacterium tuberculosis, phenotypic methods for drug susceptibility testing of second-line drugs are poorly standardized and technically challenging. The Sensititre MYCOTB MIC plate (MYCOTB) is a microtiter plate containing lyophilized antibiotics and configured for determination of MICs to first- and second-line antituberculosis drugs. To evaluate the performance of MYCOTB for M.