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Objectives: The aim of this study was to produce Geo Spatial Distribution of Frequencies of MTB/RIF Detected Specimens based on Requesting Health Facilities in Manicaland Zimbabwe for 2017 and 2018, so as to give insight to TB program managers. Focusing elimination interventions on hot pockets of Tuberculosis (TB) strengthens rationale use of resources in resource limited countries like Zimbabwe. Early detection and early treatment is backbone of breaking TB transmission. Drug resistant tuberculosis (DRTB) control interventions like Programmatic Management of Drug Resistant TB or mentoring on Short, all Oral Regimen for Rifampicin resistant Tuberculosis (ShORRT) will be driven by science. Materials and Methods: The retrospective study was carried out in Manicaland, Zimbabwe. Manicaland one of the 10 provinces in Zimbabwe, has 7 districts with 308 health facilities. During this retrospective cross sectional study 2221 MTB detected results of 2017 and 2018, downloaded from 14 of the 15 Genexpert sites in Manicaland were employed to generate hotspot maps. Fifteenth Genexpert site lost its electronic records when Genexpert CPU crushed. Geographical Positioning System (GPS) of the health facilities were recorded.The study used MTB detected frequencies at a facility in relation to surrounding facilities in Manicaland, then ran optimised hotspot analysis function in Arc Map 10.5 to implement the Gi* statistic. Results: Overall provincial MTB detected positivity was 2221/36055 (6.2%). Overall provincial Rifampicin Resistant (RR) positivity was. 111.2221(5.0%). Geo-spatial map of Manicaland showed 10 facilities that are RR hotspots with 7/10 (70%) of the facilities in Buhera district. Chipinge district had facilities that were MTB detected high hotspots.For the whole of Manicaland, Buhera district had100% MTB detected low hotspots facilities. Ninety percent hotspots were clustered around 2 of the 15 Genexpert Sites in Manicaland, namely Murambinda Mission Hospital and Chipinge District Hospital. Conclusion: Study identified health facilities with high frequencies of RR areas. For the identified health facilities with high frequencies of RR specimens, NTP may focus DRTB control interventions like PMDT, or mentoring on ShORRT. For the health facilities with high frequencies of MTB detected NTP can focus trainings in TB Case Management. Instead of uniformly spreading the limited resources to all 325 facilities, efforts streamlined to manageable number of 20 facilities in commensurate with identified gap(e.g. objective selection of cadres for training, data driven supportive supervision & targeted awareness campaigns). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An oligonucleotide ligation assay (OLA) designed to detect Human Immunodeficiency Virus type-1 (HIV)-drug-resistance to the nevirapine (NVP) selected mutations K103N, Y181C, V106M and G190A was used to evaluate 200 archived dried blood spots (DBS) from infected infants participating in the Zimbabwean Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) Program. Consensus sequencing of specimens with indeterminate OLA results was performed to identify genetic sequence polymorphisms that appeared to compromise performance of the OLA. When consistent patterns of polymorphisms were observed the probes were redesigned, and DBS specimens with indeterminate OLA results were retested with the new Zimbabwe-specific (ZW) probes. OLA results obtained in Zimbabwe were compared to repeat testing in a US reference laboratory. 188/200 (94%) DBS yielded polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of HIV pol . ZW probes reduced indeterminate OLA results from 5.2% to 2.8% of codons evaluated ( p = 0.02), with 98.2% concordance between results obtained in the Zimbabwean and US laboratories. Optimization of OLA probes to accommodate polymorphisms in regional HIV variants improved OLA performance, and comparison to the USA results showed successful implementation of the OLA in Zimbabwe for detection of NVP resistance mutations in DBS specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]