Malathi Ram
South Africa
School of Nursing, PhD program
 South Africa (SA) has the second highest incidence of TB cases and is ranked 9th among the top 22 worldwide for absolute burden. Treatment for MDR-TB began in 1999 as part of routine TB control by the National Department of Health. The Medical Research Counsel (MRC) assumed responsibility for coordination and implementation of DOTS-Plus in SA in 2000 and ended this oversight in 2005. During its tenure of oversight, the MRC implemented a highly regimented, paper-based, data-collection system at each of the MDR treatment facilities. The MRC currently has approximately 6,000 completed records representing 6,000 unique treatment episodes.
This large cohort study will address the following research questions:
1. What is the prevalence of MDR-TB treatment failure in this population?
2. What are the clinical characteristics of patients who fail (or succeed) second line treatment for MDR-TB and what is the rate of failure (success)? How do they compare to those who did not fail treatment?
3. What are the microbiological characteristics of patients who fail second line treatment for MDR-TB?" I am currently preparing the data from my study for presentation at an international scientific meeting. >> See all Spring 2006 Framework Award winners | 
