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  • HIV increases the risk of developing TB disease, both reactivation and newly acquired infection. HIV is responsible for a large increase in the proportion of patients with smear-negative PTB and EPTB.

  • Sputum smear-negative and EPTB HIV+ patients can have excessive early mortality compared with HIV+, smear- positive PTB patients if they are not detected and treated promptly.

  • Tackling this problem requires rapid diagnosis of sputum smear-negative PTB in settings with high HIV prevalence.
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