Informing decision-making for universal access to quality tuberculosis diagnosis in India: an economic-epidemiological model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

India and many other high-burden countries have committed to providing universal access to high-quality diagnosis and drug susceptibility testing (DST) for tuberculosis (TB), but the most cost-effective approach to achieve this goal remains uncertain. Centralized testing at district-level hub facilities with a supporting sample transport network can generate economies of scale, but decentralization to the peripheral level may provide faster diagnosis and reduce losses to follow-up (LTFU).

Methods

We generated functions to evaluate the costs of centralized and decentralized molecular testing for tuberculosis with Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert), a WHO-endorsed test which can be performed at centralized and decentralized levels. We merged the cost estimates with an agent-base

SUBMITTER: Sohn H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6683370 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature