S E T T I N G :Both depression and tuberculosis (TB) are global public health problems that have a substantial impact on human health. However, depressive state among TB patients has not been well investigated in the Philippines. O B J E C T I V E : To assess depressive state among pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients and to identify factors associated with depressive state in Manila, the Philippines. D E S I G N : A cross-sectional survey of PTB patients was conducted at 10 public health centres and two nongovernment organisation clinics providing DOTS in District I, Tondo, Manila. Face-to-face interviews with 561 PTB patients using a structured questionnaire were conducted. R E S U LT S : Depressive state was observed in 16.8% of the participants. Logistic regression analysis indicated that body mass index < 18.5 kg/m 2 , marital status of cohabitation compared with married, four or more symptoms, four or more adverse drug reactions, grade 3 or higher on the Medical Research Council dyspnoea scale and low perceived confidant social support were significantly associated with depressive state.

Socioeconomic status including SHS exposure and low perceived social support, in addition to clinical factors, may be associated with poor HRQOL. Further study would be needed to assess our findings.

Implementation of lateral flow devices (LFDs) for rabies antigen detection is expected to improve surveillance through the efficient detection of rabid animals in resource-limited settings; however, the use of LFDs for diagnosis remains controversial because some commercially available kits show low sensitivity. Therefore, we compared the diagnostic efficacy of three LFDs (ADTEC, Bionote, and Elabscience kits) paralleled with the direct fluorescent antibody test (dFAT) using fresh samples and investigated the diagnostic accuracies. To do so, we evaluated rabies-suspected samples submitted to the Regional Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory III, Philippines. Furthermore, we conducted real-time RT-PCR and sequencing to measure the accuracy of field laboratory diagnosis. The total number of animals submitted during this study period was 184 cases, including negative control samples. Of these, 53.9% (84 cases) were positive in the dFAT. Dogs were the most common rabies-suspected animal (n = 135). The sensitivities of the ADTEC and Bionote kits were 0.88 (74 cases) and 0.95 (80 cases), respectively. The specificity of both kits was 1.00 (100 cases). Furthermore, the sensitivity and specificity of the ADTEC kit after directly homogenizing the samples in assay buffer without dilution in phosphate-buffered saline (ADTEC kit DM) were 0.94 (79 cases) and 1.00 (100 cases), respectively. By contrast, there were no positive results using the Elabscience kit among all dFAT-positive samples. The sensitivity and specificity of LFDs make these tests highly feasible if properly used. Therefore, LFD tests can be used to strengthen the surveillance of rabies-infected animals in endemic and resource-limited settings.