Discover how innovative strategies like urban mobile brigades and portable X-ray machines with CAD4TB AI software are making significant strides in TB diagnosis among Lima’s transgender community, a group facing unique health challenges.
Source: Mg. Daniela Puma’s presentation “Active Search for Importance and Experience in Peru” // Location: Peru // Organisation: Socios en Salud.
Transgender women are a vulnerable population due to difficulties in accessing health services, stigmatisation, and the presence of other comorbidities such as HIV.
In July 2022, two strategies were implemented in Lima’s transgender population. Urban mobile brigades included transgender individuals and collected sputum samples for Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra and also brought a portable X-ray machine with CAD4TB AI software to areas where the transgender population lived. A sputum sample was requested for molecular testing from people with abnormal X-ray results.
During the first eight months, 33 mobile brigades and 11 portable X-ray interventions were conducted. 381 transgender persons were approached by mobile brigades, 362 (95%) left a sputum sample, and 11 (3%) persons were diagnosed with TB. Among 111 transgender women approached by the portable X-ray team, 110 (99%) were evaluated. Abnormal X-ray results were detected for 34 (30%) individuals, of whom 33 (99%) were evaluated with sputum testing. 4 individuals (3.6% of those screened by radiography) were diagnosed with TB. In total, 12 (86%) of the 14 individuals diagnosed with TB started treatment.
Both screening strategies diagnosed TB in about 3% of the transgender people evaluated, which is more than 10 times the estimated incidence in Peru (130 per 100,000). It is important to implement active TB case-finding in this vulnerable population using these strategies.
REFERENCE: Puma, A.D.V. (2023, November 15-18). Active TB screening in transgender populations [Conference session]. The Union World Conference on Lung Health 2023, Paris, France.
