Najeeha Talat Iqbal

TL;DR: A quantitative molecular diagnostic approach improved population-level and case-level characterisation of the causes of diarrhoea and indicated a high burden of disease associated with six pathogens, for which targeted treatment should be prioritised.

TL;DR: Molecular diagnostic tests can detect pathogens with high sensitivity and ascribe diarrhoeal associations based on quantification, including in mixed infections, providing rich and unprecedented measurements of infectious causes.

TL;DR: Subclinical infection and quantity of pathogens, particularly Shigella, enteroaggregative E coli, Campylobacter, and Giardia, had a substantial negative association with linear growth, which was sustained during the first 2 years of life, and in some cases, to 5 years.

TL;DR: Quantitative molecular diagnostics improved estimates of pathogen-specific burdens of childhood diarrhoea in the community setting and created aetiology prediction scores using clinical characteristics that could improve the management of diarrhoee in these low-resource settings.

TL;DR: The development of tuberculosis in children closely exposed to a tuberculosis case and followed for incident disease suggests that alternative strategies for prevention are needed, such as earlier initiation of preventive therapy through rapid diagnosis of adult cases or community-wide screening approaches.