Distinct Prevalence of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Gansu, China

Limited knowledge is available on regional distribution of antituberculosis (TB) drug resistance and on provincespecific time-trends in TB drug susceptibility in China. To obtain the latest information about the dynamics of drug-resistant TB in Gansu province, we conducted a retrospective study and analyzed data on drug resistance among new TB cases diagnosed between June 2010 and May 2014 in Gansu, China. The data were collected from the only TB surveillance and treatment hospital in Gansu and, therefore, represented the epidemiology of TB in the province. The drug resistance was defined based on diagnostic drug susceptibility testing. Overall, 17.3% of TB new cases diagnosed during 2010 to 2014 in Gansu presented resistance to at least one anti-TB drug. And a total of 2.9% of new TB cases have multidrug resistance. The prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB in Gansu was found to resurge after 2013 (2.0%) after a steady decline between 2010 and 2012 (from 7.1% to 1.2%). The drug resistance patterns of TB and their revolution trends in Gansu differed from other regions of China. We report the first epidemiological description of drug-resistant TB in Gansu, which is distinct when compared to other regions. Our data demonstrate that the distribution of drug-resistant TB varies to a great extent among different geographic regions. And the results of our study greatly suggest that the implementation of individualized TB management and regimen policy based on the regional epidemiology of TB drug susceptibility is highly required.

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