Determinant of catastrophic costs associated with treatment for rifampicin-resistant TB in households in the Republic of Moldova.

Setting: The Republic of Moldova is a lower-middle-income country. Patients with TB face some barriers to accessing TB services. Welfare benefits are available during TB treatment.

TB and poverty: the effect of rifampicin-resistant TB on household income.

Setting: The Republic of Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, also bears one of the highest burdens of rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB).

Objectives: To trace the patients' journey through TB in terms of the relationship with poverty and assess its determinants.

Design: This cross-sectional study used secondary data from a survey assessing catastrophic costs in RR-TB-affected households.

Efficacy and safety of delamanid in combination with an optimised background regimen for treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group phase 3 trial.

Background: Delamanid is one of two recently approved drugs for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of delamanid in the first 6 months of treatment.

Methods: This randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial was done at 17 sites in seven countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Peru, the Philippines, and South Africa).

Do incentives improve tuberculosis treatment outcomes in the Republic of Moldova?

Setting: Tuberculosis (TB) health facilities in the Republic of Moldova, where various incentives were provided to TB patients to improve treatment outcomes.

Objective: To compare treatment outcomes among new drug-susceptible TB patients registered for treatment before (2008) and after (2011) introduction of incentives.

Design: Retrospective cohort study using data from the national electronic patient database and incentive registers.

High risk and rapid appearance of multidrug resistance during tuberculosis treatment in Moldova.

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a serious problem in the former Soviet Union and may appear during TB treatment. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of, timing of and factors associated with MDR-TB diagnosis during TB treatment in Moldova, which was part of the former Soviet Union. We analysed data on 3 754 confirmed non-MDR-TB cases (between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2010) in the Moldovan TB surveillance database, where patients provided sputum specimens for drug-susceptibility testing, multiple times, during treatment.