HIV and HBV co-infections among patients with active TB disease attending a primary health care centre in a rural area of north India

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This prospective cross-sectional hospital based study was carried out in order to assess the prevalence of HIV and HBV co-infections among patients with active TB disease attending an OPD at the Model Rural Health Research Unit (MRHRU) in Ghatampur, a rural village in Kanpur district of UP. This is a field unit of National JALMA Institute for Leprosy & other Mycobacterial Diseases at Agra. The socio-demographic features and clinical profile of the TB patients were analysed in the context of symptoms at the time of testing. The HIV and HBV status were determined and correlated with clinical features at the time of testing. In our study, seroprevalence of HIV infection among TB patients is 1.48% (18/1215) and that of HBsAg reactivity was found to be 2.96% (36/1215). During 2007–2010, the HIV-positivity varied between 1.5% and 1.45% whereas HBV reactivity ranged between 2.4% and 3.63%. A substantial percentage of the TB patients attending the OPD in Ghatampur harbour HIV and HBV co-infections, which otherwise would remain undiagnosed without serological screening. There is an urgent need to perform population based surveys of HIV and Hepatitis infections among TB patients to assess the true extent of the problem.