Background: Tuberculosis (TB) screening programmes among asylum seekers tend to focus on chest radiography (CXR) for early diagnosis, whereas knowledge on sputum examination is limited. We evaluated active TB screening using CXR and sputum culture among asylum seekers arriving in Denmark. In addition, we assessed the coverage of a voluntary health assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSetting: It is estimated that 25% of the world's population are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and that 463 million people are living with diabetes mellitus (DM), a number that is increasing. Patients with DM have three times the risk of developing tuberculosis (TB) and there is significant interaction between DM and TB, suggesting that DM affects not only risk of TB but also TB presentation, treatment response and outcome.
Objective: The aim was determining the prevalence of DM among TB patients in Denmark and to assess risk factors.
Hepatotoxicity is a well-known side effect to isoniazid treatment with the risk of progression to liver failure. This case report describes a 39-year-old male, who received standard isoniazid treatment for latent TB infection (LTBI) and developed severe isoniazid-induced acute hepatitis. Liver transplantation was considered, but the patient slowly recovered with full hepatic regeneration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The majority of tuberculosis (TB) cases in low-incidence countries occur in migrants. Only few studies have assessed the long-term TB risk in migrants after immigration, and datasets have not considered this across a range of diverse migrant groups. This nationwide study aimed to investigate long-term TB risk among migrants according to migrant status and region of origin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTuberculosis (TB) remains a public health emergency worldwide. WHO recommends low-incidence countries to increase awareness of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) as part of a national preventive strategy. This review focuses on the burden of TB in Denmark, which might be reduced, if more focus was paid on diagnosing LTBI in relevant patients, and treatment to prevent future active TB cases was initiated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackgroundMigrants account for the majority of tuberculosis (TB) cases in low-incidence countries in western Europe. TB incidence among migrants might be influenced by patterns of migration, but this is not well understood.AimTo investigate differences in TB risk across migrant groups according to migrant status and region of origin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal migration is increasing, including migration from tuberculosis (TB) high-incidence countries to TB low-incidence countries as Denmark. Asylum seekers are at increased risk of having TB, and screening for TB is potentially highly relevant in Europe. However, there is a large variation in the ways screening is carried out and in the yield of the different screening programmes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe still increasing global migration affects the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in European countries. We present the case of an asylum seeker from a TB high-endemic country, who presented with severe TB spondylodiscitis and need for emergency surgery. The patient had a history of recurrent sterile axillary and perianal abscesses for years, but TB was never properly ruled out.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis is the most important tool for assessing central nervous system (CNS) disease. An elevated CSF leukocyte count rarely provides the final diagnosis, but is almost always an indicator of inflammation within the CNS.The present study investigated the variety of diseases associated with CSF pleocytosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The ability of interferon-γ release assays to predict the development of TB has been investigated in many studies, but few cases develop TB during follow-up limiting the generalisation of results.
Methods: We assessed QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube test (QFT) results from 15 980 Danish individuals and data on all TB cases in Denmark from 2005 to 2012 and determined the predictive value of the QFT for coprevalent TB (0-90 days after testing) and incident TB (>90 days).
Results: Coprevalent TB was diagnosed in 10.
The ability of Plasmodium vivax to relapse is a challenge to its management. Primaquine is the only drug licensed for the eradication of hypnozoites. We report the case of a non-immune traveller, who required high dosage primaquine treatment to obtain radical cure of vivax malaria, emphasizing the importance of country-specific and weight-based dosing of primaquine.
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