High mortality during tuberculosis treatment does not indicate long diagnostic delays in Vietnam: a cohort study.

Background: Delay in tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment initiation may increase disease severity and mortality. In evaluations of tuberculosis control programmes high fatality rates during tuberculosis treatment, are used as an indicator of long delays in low HIV-prevalence settings. However, data for this presumed association between delay and fatality are lacking.

Mortality and failure among tuberculosis patients who did not complete treatment in Vietnam: a cohort study.

Background: Tuberculosis treatment failure and death rates are low in the Western Pacific Region, including Vietnam. However, failure or death may also occur among patients who did not complete treatment, i.e.

Delays in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis patients in Vietnam: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Treatment delay is an important indicator of access to tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. Analyses of patient delay (i.e.

Antituberculosis drug resistance in the south of Vietnam: prevalence and trends.

Background: There is limited evidence that the DOTS (directly observed therapy, short course) strategy for tuberculosis (TB) control can contain the emergence and spread of drug resistance in the absence of second-line treatment. We compared drug-resistance levels between 1996 and 2001 in the south of Vietnam, an area with a well-functioning DOTS program.

Methods: Sputum specimens were collected from consecutively diagnosed patients with smear-positive TB at 40 randomly selected public TB clinics.

A household survey on morbidity and treatment of acute respiratory infections in communities in Vietnam.

Objective: To ascertain the extent of under-utilization and insufficiency or inappropriateness in provision of health services as one of the possible causes of high mortality from pediatric pneumonia in pilot areas in Vietnam.

Method: The household survey on morbidity and treatment of acute respiratory infections, simple cough, and cold and pneumonia, was conducted in two communities with 10% sampling of the child population.

Results: Both under-treatment of "fast breathing", a proxy for pneumonia, and over-treatment of simple cough and cold with antimicrobials by health workers, mothers, and private practitioners were common.