Philip C Hill

..To prepare for national introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine of restricted valency, we studied nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Gambian infants...

..tuberculosis and the human host and for assessing new interventions and diagnostic tests. We aimed to identify the incidence rate of new TB cases among TB contacts and to relate this to their initial Mantoux and ELISPOT test results...

..To address this deficiency, we conducted a longitudinal assessment of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot test (ELISPOT) test in comparison to the standard tuberculin skin test (TST)...

..The Purified Protein Derivative (PPD) skin test is thought to be non-specific, especially in tropical settings. We compared the PPD skin test with an ELISPOT test in The Gambia...

..pneumoniae in rural Africa and a baseline for evaluating the impact of the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine into the region...

..758, r=0.840). Therefore a combined ESAT-6/CFP-10 peptide pool provided maximum sensitivity and efficiency, but CFP-10 was mainly required to detect active disease...

..We evaluated whether an ELISPOT test could identify tuberculosis (TB) contacts with boosting of immunity to non-tuberculous mycobacterial exposure...

..These individuals are a high-risk group, and the disease identified is less advanced than that found through passive case detection. An ELISPOT assay was relatively insensitive as a screening test for TB...

..To prepare for the introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine of restricted valency, we studied the nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Gambian villagers...

..We assessed the safety and immunogenicity of this new vaccine in West African volunteers...

..007). A fusion protein of ESAT-6 and CFP-10 is equivalent to overlapping peptides for the diagnosis of latent M. tuberculosis infection. Use of a combination of peptides and fusion protein offers improved sensitivity...

..This may reflect early signs of reactivation, reinfection, or a restricted, inefficient immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis...

..We hypothesized that TB patients in The Gambia would have reduced ELISPOT counts after successful treatment...

..This study compares the molecular epidemiology of S. pneumoniae serotype 1 causing invasive disease in The Gambia between 1996 and 2005 to those carried in the nasopharynx between 2004 and 2006...

..In addition, they had worse disease on chest X-ray, despite complaining of cough for an equal duration, and were more likely severely malnourished. In this cohort, the prevalence of MAF did not change significantly over a 7-year period...

..tuberculosis infection or disease. This work has important public health benefits in regards to diagnosis and treatment of TB in sub-Saharan Africa and in furthering our understanding of the requirements for protective immunity to TB...

..This finding offers new possibilities for assessment of the efficacy of new interventions, and adjustment should be made for it when relating the early immune response to progression to disease...

..We compared the diagnostic performance of an in-house T -cell and commercial whole blood-based IGRAs for the diagnosis of LTBI and TB disease in The Gambia...

..africanum than among the isolates of M. tuberculosis. We postulate that M. africanum became endemic in West Africa first, before the introduction of different lineages within M. tuberculosis sensu stricto...

..We conclude that BCG is immunogenic, but this effector response is short-lived and can be limited in higher pre-existing anti-mycobacterial immunity, suggesting a possible threshold beyond which BCG immunogenicity is inhibited...

..There is considerable variability in the outcome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We hypothesized that Mycobacterium africanum was less likely than M. tuberculosis to transmit and progress to tuberculosis disease...

..TB in diagnosing latent tuberculosis (LTBI) among childhood TB contacts in a TB endemic setting with high BCG coverage. We evaluated the performance of interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) and TST when combined in an algorithm...

..Few studies on bacteraemia in Africa have been published. We aimed to prospectively identify the causative organisms of bacteraemia in The Gambia and their relation to clinical diagnoses, outcome and antimicrobial susceptibility...

..These issues are highly relevant to early clinical trials with all new tuberculosis vaccines in the developing world...

..To describe the characteristics of pneumococcal isolates obtained from patients with invasive pneumococcal disease in The Gambia...

..Gambian infants frequently acquire Streptococcus pneumoniae soon after birth. We investigated the indirect effect of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) on pneumococcal acquisition in newborn Gambian babies...

..ESAT-6/CFP-10 ELISPOT probably offers increased specificity in the diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infection in this tropical setting of endemicity, at the cost of some sensitivity...

..We aimed to study health-seeking behaviour and experience of those with cough in The Gambia and to identify whether they had tuberculosis...

..We aimed to identify risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis in those attending a general outpatients clinic in The Gambia, a sub-Saharan African country with relatively low HIV prevalence in the community and in TB patients...

..Our data indicate that despite a robust response to TB antigens in active TB disease, changes in the pattern of cytokine production between TB infection and disease clearly contribute to disease progression...

..We measured pneumococcal polysaccharide antibody concentrations in this trial to understand further the mechanisms underlying the observed changes...

..The concentrators broke down and were put into storage. A case study was done to find the reasons for the problem and to draw lessons to help improve both oxygen supplies and the success of future equipment donations...

..To compare oxygen supply options for health facilities in the Gambia and develop a decision-making algorithm for choosing oxygen delivery systems in Africa and the rest of the developing world...

..Mycobacterium africanum, a member of the M. tuberculosis complex that is infrequently found outside of western Africa, is the cause of up to half of the tuberculosis cases there...

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..After 24 h of culture, 66% were positive, compared to 93% after 6 days of culture...

..To compare the enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay with the tuberculin skin test (TST) in children for the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in the Gambia...