Tomer Barak

A 40-year-old woman with a history of poorly controlled HIV presented to a district referral hospital in rural Botswana for a generalized skin rash of several months duration. The highly pruritic rash predominantly involved her hands and feet and was associated with bullae that were present for days at a time before rupturing without drainage or discharge. The patient endorsed night sweats, periodic fevers, occasional cough productive of blood-tinged sputum, fatigue, and weight loss. On admission, CD4 count was 46 cells/mm3 and viral load was >750000 copies/mL. Pulmonary tuberculosis testing via sputum was negative twice. A blood count demonstrated eosinophilia. Oral acyclovir was started empirically for disseminated herpes virus infection, with topical beclomethasone and intravenous antibiotics for possible superinfected bullous dermatosis. With inadequate response to treatment, a skin biopsy was obtained and microscopic examination demonstrated scabies mites. The absence of ski...

C. KERSHAW, M. WILLIAMS, S. KILARU, and T. BARAK Dept. of Infectious Disease, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, Dept. of Hospital Medicine, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH, Dept. of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, New York Univeristy Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States, Botswana-Harvard Partnership, Gaborone, Scottish Livingstone Hospital, Molepolole, Botswana, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States

Background: Missed clinical appointments contribute to delayed cancer diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately poorer outcomes. In Botswana, a middle income sub-Saharan African country where oncology treatment is available for free to all citizens, median time from first facility visit to treatment initiation is 160 days (IQR: 59-653). Aim: To identify patient and visit characteristics associated with missing appointments, and describe reasons for missed visits among adult patients undergoing evaluation for possible cancer at public facilities in a rural district in Botswana. Methods: Patients ≥ 18 years with symptoms or signs suggestive of cancer were enrolled in the Potlako trial, an ongoing prospective health systems pilot seeking to improve timely diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Study staff tracked patient visits and if a patient missed a visit, study staff administered a brief structured phone interview to 1) determine reasons, 2) reschedule visit and 3) arrange transport suppor...

67 Background: Health system delays are a major contributor to poor outcomes among cancer patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In Botswana, while median time from cancer-related symptom onset to first presentation at local health facility is 29 days, median time to initiation of cancer treatment is 401 days. Challenges to timely diagnosis and care include clinicians' lack of knowledge, limited diagnostic capacity, poor coordination between facilities, and socioeconomic barriers of patients that impede follow-up. We sought to develop an intervention to improve access to prompt cancer care. Methods: Participating facilities are all public health facilities (21 health posts, 14 clinics, 2 hospitals) in Botswana's Kweneng-East district as well as the national referral hospital. The five components of intervention are a) training of clinicians at primary facilities on evaluation of patients with suspected cancer, b) implementation of a standardized referral algor...

Background Botswana was the first African country to implement a ‘treat all’ dolutegravir (DTG)-based treatment program for all adults. We studied whether this transition made a short-term impact on inpatient mortality among people living with HIV (PLWHIV). Methods From Dec 2015-Nov 2017, data were collected prospectively on all patients admitted to the medical wards of a district hospital in Botswana. Tenofovir/emtricitabine/efavirenz (TDF/FTC/EFV) was the first-line recommended antiretroviral treatment (ART) regimen for all ART-naïve adults with CD4 < 350 until May 2016, when it was replaced by TDF/FTC/DTG without CD4 restriction (‘treat all’). Multivariable logistic regression was used to compare mortality by ART regimen. Results Of 1,969 patients admitted, 41.5% were PLWHIV and of these 62.9% were on ART prior to admission. Before ‘treat all’, 160 (58.0%) of 276 PLWHIV were on ART prior to admission, and post-implementation 354 (65.4%) of 541 PLWHIV were on ART prior to admis...

BackgroundThe prevalence of hypertension in low‐ and middle‐income countries is rapidly increasing, with most cases undiagnosed and many poorly controlled among those diagnosed. Medication reconciliation studies from high‐income countries have demonstrated a high occurrence of antihypertensive medication errors and a strong association between medication errors and inadequate blood pressure control, but data from low‐ and middle‐income countries are lacking.Methods and ResultsWe conducted a cross‐sectional study from April to October 2018 of adult patients on pharmacologic management for known hypertension at 7 public health facilities in Kweneng East District, Botswana. Our aims included to evaluate the frequency of uncontrolled hypertension, the frequency and type of medication errors causing discrepancies between patient‐reported and prescribed antihypertensive medications, and the association between medication errors and uncontrolled hypertension. Descriptive analyses and multivariable logistic regression were used. The prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension was 55% among 280 enrolled adult patients, and 95 (34%) had ≥1 medication error. The most common errors included patients taking medications incorrectly (11.1%; 31/280), patients omitting medications (7.9%; 22/280), and unfilled prescriptions caused by pharmacy stock outs (7.5%%; 21/280). Uncontrolled hypertension was significantly associated with having ≥1 medication error compared with no errors (adjusted odds ratio, 3.26; 95% CI, 1.75–6.06; P<0.001).ConclusionsMedication errors are strongly associated with poor blood pressure control in this setting. Further research is warranted to assess whether medication reconciliation and other low‐cost interventions addressing root causes of medication errors can improve the control of hypertension and other chronic conditions in low‐ and middle‐income countries.

Health system delays in diagnosis of cancer contribute to the glaring disparities in cancer mortality between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries. In Botswana, approximately 70% of cancers are diagnosed at late stage and median time from first health facility visit for cancer-related symptoms to specialty cancer care was 160 days (IQR 59-653). We describe the implementation and early outcomes of training targeting primary care providers, which is a part of a multi-component implementation study in Kweneng-East district aiming to enhance timely diagnosis of cancers. Health-care providers from all public facilities within the district were invited to participate in an 8-h intensive short-course program developed by a multidisciplinary team and adapted to the Botswana health system context. Participants&#39; performance was assessed using a 25-multiple choice question tool, with pre- and post-assessments paired by anonymous identifier. Statistical analysis with W...

Following publication of the original article [1], one of the authors reported that prior to publication her surname had changed from &#39;Kerlen&#39; to &#39;van der Kruk&#39;, but that this change had not been incorporated in the final version.

It has been suggested that oxidative stress may play a role in the pathogenesis of heart failure, this may have potential implications for therapeutic strategies. However, measures of oxidative stress are subject to confounding inaccuracies. IgG antibodies to oxidized LDL reflect exposure to the lipoprotein over an extended period and may thus mirror oxidative stress over a prolonged time frame. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that anti-oxLDL antibodies correlate with the control of heart failure (HF), as manifested by hospital admissions for cardiac dysfunction. One hundred and two consecutive patients attending the HF clinic with either systolic or diastolic HF were enrolled and the quality of clinical control was evaluated by assessing hospital admissions over the year prior to index determination of the oxidative stress marker. Antibodies to oxLDL were determined by ELISA and pro-BNP levels were also measured. Most patients (mean age 71.5 years) had systolic HF; mean NYHA fu...

It has been suggested that oxidative stress may play a role in the pathogenesis of heart failure, this may have potential implications for therapeutic strategies. However, measures of oxidative stress are subject to confounding inaccuracies. IgG antibodies to oxidized LDL reflect exposure to the lipoprotein over an extended period and may thus mirror oxidative stress over a prolonged time frame. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that anti-oxLDL antibodies correlate with the control of heart failure (HF), as manifested by hospital admissions for cardiac dysfunction. One hundred and two consecutive patients attending the HF clinic with either systolic or diastolic HF were enrolled and the quality of clinical control was evaluated by assessing hospital admissions over the year prior to index determination of the oxidative stress marker. Antibodies to oxLDL were determined by ELISA and pro-BNP levels were also measured. Most patients (mean age 71.5 years) had systolic HF; mean NYHA functional class was 2.7 and mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 39.7%. Anti-oxLDL antibodies, but not pro-BNP, correlated significantly with mean NYHA score (averaged from all clinic visits in the year prior to blood testing), and with hospital admissions over the year prior to blood testing. Mean IgG anti-oxLDL antibody levels in patients with hospital admissions were 3.4 times higher than those in subjects not hospitalized over the previous year. IgG anti-oxLDL antibody levels correlate with the severity of HF.