Hi Reddit,
My name is Dr. Claudia Denkinger and I am a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and the Head of the Tuberculosis and Hepatitis Programme at FIND. FIND is a non-for-profit organization in Geneva that is working to provide diagnostic solutions for patients in resource poor settings.
And my name is Dr. David Dowdy and I am an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. My research focuses on the population-level dynamics of tuberculosis - including drug-resistant tuberculosis - in high-burden settings.
We recently published a paper entitled, "Do we need to detect isoniazid resistance in addition to rifampicin resistance in diagnostic tests for tuberculosis?" in PLOS ONE. In this paper, we constructed a mathematical model of tuberculosis transmission in a population similar to that of India, in order to evaluate the effects of different strategies for drug resistance testing on the future of the drug-resistant TB epidemic. We specifically looked at testing for rifampicin and isoniazid - the two most important first-line TB drugs - and we found that testing for isoniazid did not provide much additional benefit on top of testing for rifampicin. These results have been important for developing policy related to resistance testing for TB, as well as our understanding of long-term dynamics of resistance to different drugs against TB.
We will be answering your questions at 1pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC), we’re looking forward to the conversation!
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