Prevalence of Candida Co-Infections among Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Emuoha, Rivers State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Candida spp have been one of the co-infection challenges facing the patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis 300 clinical specimen of sputa and oral swabs were collected from hospitalized tuberculosis patients for isolation of Candida spp. The patients were divided into two (2) categories. Group A included tuberculosis patients with some complications like fever and marked cough on spite of the anti- tuberculosis treatment. Group B included tuberculosis patients with no complications. Candida spp were isolated and identified on the basis of morphological cultural and biochemical characteristics. Candida spp were isolated from 76 samples out of 300(25.3%) samples. The incidence rate of Candida co-infection was found to be higher in group A patients (28.4%) than in group B patients (20%). Among the Candida spp isolates, Candida albican (16.3%) was the most prevalent followed by Candida tropicalis (8.9%) and Candida stellatoids (3.2%). The incidence of candida infections was higher in male (27.1%) than in female patients (23.1%)