Poverty is strongly associated with mortality from COPD, but little is known of its relation to airflow obstruction.In a cross-sectional study of adults aged ≥40 years from 12 sites (N=9255), participating in the Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) study, poverty was evaluated using a wealth score (0-10) based on household assets. Obstruction, measured as forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV)/forced vital capacity (FVC) (%) after administration of 200 μg salbutamol, and prevalence of FEV/FVC

Rationale: The Global Burden of Disease program identified smoking and ambient and household air pollution as the main drivers of death and disability from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).Objectives: To estimate the attributable risk of chronic airflow obstruction (CAO), a quantifiable characteristic of COPD, due to several risk factors.Methods: The Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease study is a crosssectional study of adults, aged $40, in a globally distributed sample of 41 urban and rural sites. Based on data from 28,459 participants, we estimated the prevalence of CAO, defined as a postbronchodilator FEV 1 -to-FVC ratio less than the lower limit of normal, and the relative risks associated with different risk factors. Local relative risks were estimated using a Bayesian hierarchical model borrowing information from across sites.From these relative risks and the prevalence of risk factors, we estimated local population attributable risks. Measurements and Main Results:The mean prevalence of CAO was 11.2% in men and 8.6% in women. The mean population attributable risk for smoking was 5.1% in men and 2.2% in women. The next most influential risk factors were poor education levels, working in a dusty job for $10 years, low body mass index, and a history of tuberculosis. The risk of CAO attributable to the different risk factors varied across sites.Conclusions: Although smoking remains the most important risk factor for CAO, in some areas, poor education, low body mass index, and passive smoking are of greater importance. Dusty occupations and tuberculosis are important risk factors at some sites.

We characterized a set of 100 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex clinical isolates from tuberculosis (TB) patients in Albania, typing them with a 24-locus variable-number tandem-repeat-spoligotyping scheme. Depending on the cluster definition, 43 to 49 patients were distributed into 15 to 16 clusters which were likely to be epidemiologically linked, indicative of a recent transmission rate of 28 to 34%. This result suggests that TB is under control in Albania. However, two multidrug-resistant (MDR) Beijing genotypes harboring the same S531A mutation on the rpoB gene were also found, suggesting a potential recent transmission of MDR TB. Three brand new genotypes, Albania-1 to Albania-3, are also described.

Aim:Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a considerable burden especially for millions of young adults and disadvantaged people worldwide. The TB incidence and notification rates are good indicators of TB situation in a country. Our aim was to compare TB incidence and notification rates in Kosovo and in seven other Balkan countries.Methods:Retrospective epidemiologic analysis of published data on TB incidence and notification rates in eight Balkan countries in 2012. Notification rates were expressed per 100,000 inhabitants and were calculated based on the number of TB cases reported divided by the population of each country under analysis.Results:The TB incidence in Kosovo (47/100,000) was considerably higher compared to its four neighboring countries: Albania (16/100,000), Macedonia, Montenegro (18/100,000) and Serbia (23/100,000). The TB notification rates in Kosovo and other countries closely mimicked the incidence rates in these countries.Conclusion:The exceptionally high TB incidence rate in Kosovo could be due to many factors including low health and medical-seeking behaviors of the local population, poverty and low education levels. Effective interventions should be adapted to the local context in order to increase the chances of success.

BackgroundMaintaining the quality of clinical specimens for tuberculosis (TB) testing is a major challenge in many high TB burden-limited resources countries. Sample referral systems in low and middle income countries are often weak and the maintenance of the cold-chain challenging and very costly for TB programs. The development of transport media allowing the preservation of samples without refrigeration is critical for increasing access to TB diagnostic services and for reducing the costs related to testing.MethodsWe evaluated the performance of OMNIgene-SPUTUM (OM-S) reagent for the maintenance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) viability in sputum samples in the absence of refrigeration and its capacity to stabilize nucleic acid for molecular testing. A total of 329 sputum specimens from presumptive TB cases collected at the National Reference Laboratory in Tirana, Albania, were either decontaminated by a conventional method or processed with OM-S reagent and stored at room temperature. Samples in OM-S were shipped to the Supranational Reference Laboratory in Milan, Italy, at various times and processed for liquid culture.ResultsOur data show that OM-S maintains MTB viability for at least three weeks in the absence of refrigeration and improves the quality of culture resulting in a contamination rate lower than 0.5%. However, a significant delay in the time to culture positivity was observed for samples stored for more than two weeks in OM-S.ConclusionsOverall, OM-S offers multiple benefits both at laboratory and TB national program level by increasing the availability to quality diagnostics, promoting access to health care services and strengthening TB patient care especially in hard to reach populations.