| Abstract: | Approximately 10% of the Brazilian indigenous population lives in the state of MatoGrosso do Sul (MS), where a large number of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) arereported. This study was conducted to assess TB occurrence, transmission and theutility of TB diagnosis based on the Ogawa-Kudoh (O-K) culture method in this remotepopulation. The incidence of TB was estimated by a retrospective review of thesurveillance data maintained by the Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System for thestudy region. The TB transmission pattern among indigenous people was assessed bygenotyping Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates using the IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) technique.Of the 3,093 cases identified from 1999-2001, 610 (~20%) were indigenous patients(average incidence: 377/100,000/year). The use of the O-K culture method increasedthe number of diagnosed cases by 34.1%. Of the genotyped isolates from 52 indigenouspatients, 33 (63.5%) belonged to cluster RFLP patterns, indicating recentlytransmitted TB. These results demonstrate high, on-going TB transmission rates amongthe indigenous people of MS and indicate that new efforts are needed to disrupt thesecurrent transmissions. |
