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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. —RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, and research partners in the Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling (MITS) Surveillance Alliance have released a supplement of articles published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The new articles include methods, case studies, and other findings from studies using MITS — an alternative to complete diagnostic autopsy — as an effective pathology-based postmortem method in low- and middle-income countries for more accurate cause of death (CoD) determination.
MITS, also known as minimally invasive autopsy, has evolved to become an important tool to improve CoD ascertainment, particularly where complete diagnostic autopsies are not routinely conducted or are challenging to perform. This collection of articles describes the roles of MITS in facilitating the expansion of pathology-based mortality surveillance including highlighting advances for improving MITS methodology, capacity building and lessons learned from small scale implementation projects. The supplement also documents the role of MITS in related areas of research, including COVID-19 and the potential role for the investigation of infectious disease outbreaks.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted again the importance of accurate cause of death information to developing effective responses to reduce mortality,” said Norman Goco, project director and senior public health analyst in RTI’s Global Public Health Impact Center. “We continue to work with the scientific community to improve mortality surveillance data by expanding the adoption of MITS informed cause of death as a critical tool for understanding mortality and reducing premature death in low- and middle-income countries.”
The MITS Surveillance Alliance, a consortium of institutions and investigators conducting pathology-based mortality surveillance with representation in twenty countries, is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its work to enable better targeted health interventions in low and middle-income countries.
As secretariat in this consortium, RTI facilitates the development of a dynamic community of practice to advance the use of MITS. Partners include the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPs) program led by Emory University.
This collection of articles was published as a journal supplement in Clinical Infectious Diseases, an official journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and published by Oxford Academic. The work represents the contributions of 189 distinct authors from among the MITS Surveillance Alliance partners and members representing 18 countries.
To read the full journal supplement, click here.
