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Updated: Jun 24, 2025
Diagnosing Pulmonary Tuberculosis with the Xpert MTB/RIF Test
Published on: April 9, 2012
A tuberculosis elimination-focused geospatial approach to optimising access to diagnostic GeneXpert machines in Fiji
George Bates1, Philip C Hill1,2, Isireli Koroituku2
1Centre for International Health, Division of Health Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Objectives:
Fiji could be the first country to eliminate tuberculosis. To inform this strategy, we aimed to identify how many GeneXpert® machines are required to enable over 90% of Fijians to be within one-hour easy access.
Methods:
We used Geographic Information System (Quantum GIS; QGIS), OpenStreetMap and population data (Kontur) to map possible facilities in relation to QGIS generated 60-min drive-time isochrones, with correction for missing road data. For outer islands, we calculated a distance to nearest hub operation.
Results:
The solution comprised 24 GeneXpert® machines, allocating 7 GeneXpert® to Viti Levu, 6 GeneXpert® to Vanua Levu and 11 to other islands. This resulted in 827,810 people, 93.6% of Fiji's population, being within 1 h of a machine. Twenty-one thousand four hundred seventy-nine people on outer islands were an average of 43 km by water from the nearest facility.
Conclusions:
We conclude that over 90% of Fijians could be within an hour of a GeneXpert® machine with placement of 24 machines.
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