Detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection in Children Migrating to Australia

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Laemmle-Ruff, Ingrid ; Graham, Stephen M. ; Williams, Bridget ; Horyniak, Danielle ; Majumdar, Suman S. ; Paxton, Georgia A. ; Soares Caplice, Lila V. ; Hellard, Margaret E. ; Trauer, James M.
• Description:
  In 2015, Australia updated premigration screening for tuberculosis (TB) disease in children 2-10 years of age to include testing for infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and enable detection of latent TB infection (LTBI). We analyzed TB screening results in children <15 years of age during November 2015-June 2017. We found 45,060 child applicants were tested with interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) (57.7% of tests) or tuberculin skin test (TST) (42.3% of tests). A total of 21 cases of TB were diagnosed: 4 without IGRA or TST, 10 with positive IGRA or TST, and 7 with negative results. LTBI was detected in 3.3% (1,473/44,709) of children, for 30 applicants screened per LTBI case detected. LTBI-associated factors included increasing age, TB contact, origin from a higher TB prevalence region, and testing by TST. Detection of TB and LTBI benefit children, but the updated screening program's effect on TB in Australia is likely to be limited.
• Subjects:
  Child Humans Interferon-Gamma Release Tests Latent Tuberculosis Mass Screening Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Tuberculin Test
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 2022; 28(9):1833-1841
• Pubmed ID:
  35997353
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC9423895
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Australia
• Volume:
  28
• Issue:
  9
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:1cdee6e4095804d03dec02bd6891a4036d5bdea916476558b25a58e3693ec891
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/121030/cdc_121030_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 826.19 KB ]