Affiliations 

  • 1 1 Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA), Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2 5 Department of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Asia Pac J Public Health, 2018 04;30(3):235-243.
PMID: 29502429 DOI: 10.1177/1010539518757229

Abstract

The aim of this study was to simulate the effects of tuberculosis (TB) treatment strategies interventions in an overcrowded and poorly ventilated prison with both high (5 months) and low (3 years) turnover of inmates against improved environmental conditions. We used a deterministic transmission model to simulate the effects of treatment of latent TB infection and active TB, or the combination of both treatment strategies. Without any intervention, the TB prevalence is estimated to increase to 8.8% for a prison with low turnover of inmates but modestly stabilize at 5.8% for high-turnover prisons in a 10-year period. Reducing overcrowding from 6 to 4 inmates per housing cell and increasing the ventilation rate from 2 to 12 air changes per hour combined with any treatment strategy would further reduce the TB prevalence to as low as 0.98% for a prison with low inmate turnover.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.