IDSA’s “Science Speaks”: Use of Xpert TB diagnostic tool linked to lower death rates from all causes among HIV patients entering care in Malawi study
Antigone Barton, senior editor and writer of “Science Speaks,” discusses results from a study on the use of the Xpert TB diagnostic tool versus fluorescent microscopy among patients newly diagnosed with HIV showing TB symptoms in rural Malawi. Barton notes that among these patients, “death rates in the year that followed were 22 percent lower among those in rural clinics assigned to use the Xpert point-of-care TB diagnostic tool, as opposed to those in rural clinics using smear microscopy aided by fluorescent dye” (8/1).