Mixed tuberculosis infections in rural South Vietnam

Tuberculosis patients may be infected with or have disease caused by more than one Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain, usually referred to as "mixed infections." These have mainly been observed in settings with a very high tuberculosis incidence and/or high HIV prevalence. We assessed the rate of mixed infections in a population-based study in rural Vietnam, where the prevalences of both HIV and tuberculosis are substantially lower than those in previous studies looking at mixed infections. In total, 1,248 M. tuberculosis isolates from the same number of patients were subjected to IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing, spoligotyping, and variable-number-tandem-repeat (VNTR) typing. We compared mixed infections identified by the presence of (i) discrepant RFLP and spoligotype patterns in isolates from the same patient and (ii) double alleles at ≥ 2 loci by VNTR typing and assessed epidemiological characteristics of these infections. RFLP/spoligotyping and VNTR typing identified 39 (3.1%) and 60 (4.8%) mixed infections, respectively (Cohen's kappa statistic, 0.57). The number of loci with double alleles in the VNTR pattern was strongly associated with the proportion of isolates with mixed infections according to RFLP/spoligotyping (P < 0.001). Mixed infections occurred more frequently in newly treated than in previously treated patients, were significantly associated with minor X-ray abnormalities, and were almost significantly associated with lower sputum smear grades. Although the infection pressure in our study area is lower than that in previously studied populations, mixed M. tuberculosis infections do occur in rural South Vietnam in at least 3.1% of cases.