Our Mission

Create a binational consortium of tuberculosis public health workers, health officials and researchers from South Texas and Northeast Mexico, who will pool clinical, microbiological, demographic and molecular data to develop comprehensive common datasets.  These dataset will be analyzed to provide clearer insight into the generation and spread of tuberculosis and multiple drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.

The consortium will  create a preliminary regional picture of the distribution of MDR-TB across the border linking individual cases over the past 3-5 years with molecular fingerprints, drug susceptibility patterns and sociodemographic characteristics including geocoded location. This data will be the basis to design prospective, real-time follow-up of TB transmission in the study sites and improve contact tracing effectiveness and early detection of cases.

The geographic area of the consortium will encompass 5 counties of the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) from the gulf to Laredo, and in Mexico, the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon (our study site).

Our Aims

1.  Consolidate the consortium (list of consortium members) and establish a system to share and merge data in a retrospective and prospective manner.

2.  Create a preliminary comprehensive regional picture of the distribution of MDR-TB across the Texas-Mexico border by combining sociodemographic, geographic (geocoding of patient's addresses) and M. tuberculosis fingerprinting and drug-susceptibility patterns. Spatial analysis will be conducted and putative transmission clusters will be identified. Results will be compared with data from Houston, Monterrey and elsewhere, to determine the patterns and consequence of MDR-TB transmission across the border and within the United States.

3.  Standardize laboratory protocols and develop expertise for performing M. tuberculosis cultures, drug susceptibility testing and molecular fingerprinting across the study sites, so data can be generated in real time and then be comparable.

4.   Evaluate a social network analysis strategy that is suitable for the social customs from our study sites. It will extend the classical “TB contact investigations” focused on persons, to a more thorough investigation of dynamics of social behavior in time and space associated with TB transmission.

Our Study Site

Study area. Texas (blue): counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, Star, Zapata and Webb. Mexico (Yellow): State of Tamaulipas, jurisdicciones sanitarias (Jur) 3, 4 and 5. State of Nuevo León, TB clinic in the city of Monterrey. Location of key cities in Texas (blue font) and Mexico (red font) are indicated.

Participating Institutions

University of Texas Health Science Center Houston-School of Public Health

Secretaría de Salud y Jurisdicciones Sanitarias III, IV y V de Tamaulipas

Texas Department of State and Health Services

Baylor College of Medicine

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León

Hidalgo County Health Department

Cameron County Health Department

City of Laredo Health Department

Laboratorio Estatal de Tamaulipas

Laboratorio Estatal de Nuevo León