Migration and Tuberculosis Transmission in A
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Pescarini et al. BMC Medicine (2018) 16:62 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-018-1055-1 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Migration and tuberculosis transmission in a middle-income country: a cross-sectional study in a central area of São Paulo, Brazil Julia Moreira Pescarini1,3*, Vera Simonsen2, Lucilaine Ferrazoli2, Laura C. Rodrigues3, Rosangela S. Oliveira2, Eliseu Alves Waldman1† and Rein Houben3,4† Abstract Background: Little is known about the impact of growing migration on the pattern of tuberculosis (TB) transmission in middle-income countries. We estimated TB recent transmission and its associated factors and investigated the presence of cross-transmission between South American migrants and Brazilians. Methods: We studied a convenient sample of cases of people with pulmonary TB in a central area of São Paulo, Brazil, diagnosed between 2013 and 2014. Cases with similar restriction fragment length polymorphism (IS6110- RFLP) patterns of their Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex isolates were grouped in clusters (recent transmission). Clusters with both Brazilian and South American migrants were considered mixed (cross-transmission). Risk factors for recent transmission were studied using logistic regression. Results: Isolates from 347 cases were included, 76.7% from Brazilians and 23.3% from South American migrants. Fifty clusters were identified, which included 43% South American migrants and 60.2% Brazilians (odds ratio = 0.50, 95% confidence interval = 0.30–0.83). Twelve cross-transmission clusters were identified, involving 24.6% of all clustered cases and 13.8% of all genotyped cases, with migrants accounting for either an equal part or fewer cases in 11/12 mixed clusters. Conclusions: Our results suggest that TB disease following recent transmission is more common among Brazilians, especially among those belonging to high-risk groups, such as drug users. Cross-transmission between migrants and Brazilians was present, but we found limited contributions from migrants to Brazilians in central areas of São Paulo and vice versa. Keywords: Tuberculosis, Molecular epidemiology, Transmission, Migration, Middle-income; disease control Background born population is often limited [4]. As former high burden Tuberculosis (TB) in high-income countries is often driven countries in the Global South grow economically and make by migration from countries with a higher TB burden, progress in TB control, they are facing a similar challenge which can account for up to 80% of the total TB burden through increasing South-South migration [5]. [1]. As a result, migrants tend to be seen as a potential Molecular epidemiology studies can estimate the number source of transmission to the local-born population [2, 3]. of TB cases due to recent transmission between local-born However, molecular research from high-income countries and migrant populations (cross-transmission) [6]. Results has shown that transmission from migrants to the local- from high-income countries suggest that cross-transmission is bidirectional, limited and has wide variation among study * Correspondence: [email protected] settings [7–9].Thereislittleevidenceavailablefrommiddle- †Equal contributors income countries [10, 11], where Mycobacterium tubercu- 1 Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil losis complex (Mtbc) transmission between migrants and 3Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Epidemiology and Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, local-born people, in the South-South migration context, London, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Pescarini et al. BMC Medicine (2018) 16:62 Page 2 of 10 might be more pronounced because of increased mixing a combination of squatting and informal dwellings, through cultural proximity and social integration [12]. including migrants under precarious work conditions Regional migration has increased significantly in South living in the workplace [24]. The mean pulmonary TB America over the past 15 years, with a predominance of (PTB) incidence rate for 2013/2014 ranged from 13 to young, healthy and more feminized populations involved 131/100,000 inhabitants/year in the districts, and the in labour migration towards large urban centres in proportion of new PTB cases among individuals of South Argentina, Brazil and Chile [13]. While regional migra- American origin in 2013 and 2014 ranged from 14% to tion in South America can contribute to more social in- 30% in each of the Administrative Regions studied. In this tegration, the vulnerability of migrants can be enhanced context, TB transmission is favourable in areas of by the already poor social context found in metropolitan overcrowding, poverty and inequality [17]. areas of South America [14–16]. The vulnerability of the The Brazilian TB Control Programme recommends fur- local-born population and the contexts in which mi- ther confirmation by both culture and drug susceptibility grants find themselves might contribute to more TB test for TB cases in high-risk groups for TB. This includes cross-transmission than what is evidenced in high- people living with HIV (PLHIV), drug users, people in income countries [4, 12, 13]. contact with drug-resistant TB cases, smear-positive cases While the World Health Organization (WHO) End TB after 2 months on TB treatment, retreatment TB cases Strategy recognizes migrants as one of the vulnerable popu- and other members of the ‘vulnerable population’ includ- lations who must be targeted [17], many middle-income ing migrants from South American countries [19, 25]. countries do not have specific TB policies for internal or ex- Our reference population was all PTB cases among ternal migrants [18–20]. For this to change, evidence is residents in the study area, and the study population in- needed to establish whether migration is contributing to cluded only patients with TB for whom there was a cul- the TB burden in middle-income countries and to ongoing ture available, without age or sex restrictions. All Mtbc transmission among the local population. Here, we esti- culture-positive PTB cases among Brazilians and mi- mated recent transmission of TB and its associated factors grants, available at the State Reference Laboratory for and investigated the presence of cross-transmission be- TB (Instituto Adolfo Lutz-São Paulo (IAL-SP)) between tween South American migrants and Brazilians in central 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2014, were eligible for districts of the city of São Paulo. the study. We included only the first available respira- tory sample with culture (including sputum and bron- Methods choalveolar lavage) from all the individuals and excluded Study design, area and population migrants from outside South America. We conducted a cross-sectional study in the municipal- ity of São Paulo, Brazil. The Brazilian Health System Data collection (SUS) guarantees access to free and universal healthcare Socio-demographic, clinical and epidemiological data services, irrespective of country of origin [19], which is were obtained from the São Paulo Tuberculosis Control important for TB treatment completion and cure among Program database (SINAN-TBWEB) and laboratory in- migrants [21]. Migration flows in SP are predominantly formation from the IAL-SP database (SIGH). from other parts of Brazil and other South American countries. The number of TB notifications among South Molecular characterization American migrants has increased in the last ten years We performed the molecular characterization of Mtbc [21]. Migrants coming from Bolivia accounted for almost isolates by restriction fragment length polymorphism half of the notified cases in some city districts [21], and (IS6110-RFLP) at the IAL-SP [26]. Analysis of the Mtbc this probably reflects the three times higher yearly inci- pattern was conducted in Bionumerics v.7.2 (Applied dence of TB in Bolivia than in Brazil (117/100,00 inhabi- Maths, Kortrijk, Belgium). We excluded similar patterns tants/year and 41 inhabitants/year in 2015) [22]. with less than five bands. Our study focused on the central area of São Paulo, where vulnerable populations including a significant num- Data analysis and definitions ber of recently arrived migrants live. We selected four Ad- Cases with a unique IS6110-RFLP pattern were identi- ministrative Regions (administrative division of the fied and considered to result from reactivation, not in a municipality based on grouped districts) with the highest transmission chain in the sample. Two or more cases absolute number of cases of TB among South American with identical patterns or with one band difference were migrants (study area). Almost 2 million individuals live in defined as a cluster (i.e. part of the same recent trans- this densely populated study area (11,934 residents/km2), mission chain). Clusters consisting of either all Brazilian where the proportion of