Abstract
BackgroundAlthough, in South Korea, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome(HIV/AIDS) keeps increasing and tuberculosis(TB) burden is still significant, there have been few reports on TB/HIV cases. In this study, we investigated the burden and characteristics of TB/HIV patients in South Korea, an area with intermediate burden of TB and a low prevalent area with HIV/AIDS.MethodsWe identified patients with TB and cases with HIV between January 1 2001 and December 31 2005, from nationwide reporting system (TBnet and HIV/AIDS registry) through an electronic record linkage method. A questionnaire survey was also conducted and determined the rate of diagnosis of HIV among TB cases in public health units in 2005.ResultsThe number of cases with both HIV and TB was 137 (0.07% among 197,562 TB cases) and the newly detected TB/HIV cases per 100,000 population was increasing annually: 2001, 0.025; 2002, 0.031; 2003, 0.025; 2004, 0.071; 2005, 0.095. Males between 20 and 59 years of age accounted for 87.6% of TB/HIV patients. Compared with patients with TB alone, those with TB/HIV had a higher percentage of extrapulmonary TB (8.0% vs 19.0%; p < 0.0001). The standardized prevalence ratio (SPR) of HIV among patients with TB was 18.46 (95% CI, 15.50-21.83). SPR of HIV among male TB patients aged 20-59 and extrapulmonary TB cases was 39.64 (95% CI, 32.87-47.40) and 43.21 (95% CI, 28.22-63.31) respectively. Through a questionnaire survey of public health units, six patients (0.08%) were confirmed as having HIV among 7,871 TB patients in public health centers in 2005, which is similar to the result from the study through nationwide reporting systems.ConclusionsThe prevalence rate of TB/HIV patients is still low but increasing in South Korea. Physicians should consider performing HIV tests among TB patients, especially in higher-risk groups, such as young males with extrapulmonary TB in South Korea.
Highlights
In South Korea, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) keeps increasing and tuberculosis(TB) burden is still significant, there have been few reports on TB/HIV cases
A questionnaire survey was conducted among managers of public health centers (PHC), which are infrastructures of Korean public health care system, to determine the number of HIV screening tests conducted among TB patients and the rate of diagnosis of HIV in 2005
This study was not submit to an ethics institutional review board as the data we used for this study is existing data including a questionnaire survey that participants cannot be identified, and the dataset is already reviewed by some authorities of Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and Korean Institute of Tuberculosis (KIT)
Summary
In South Korea, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) keeps increasing and tuberculosis(TB) burden is still significant, there have been few reports on TB/HIV cases. We investigated the burden and characteristics of TB/HIV patients in South Korea, an area with intermediate burden of TB and a low prevalent area with HIV/AIDS. According to the World Health Organization, the number of TB cases among HIV-infected people was 0.7 million in 2006, [1] which is significant because HIV is thought to contribute to TB epidemics, especially in sub-Saharan Africa [12]. How many TB patients underwent HIV testing and how many HIV/ AIDS cases were detected among them in individual countries including South Korea has not been fully investigated [19]
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