Abstract
BackgroundEthiopia is one of the countries that are highly affected by dual epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB). HIV infection is a known risk factor for the development of active TB and it challenges in diagnosis and treatment of TB. Thus, it is essential to determine the epidemiology of HIV infection among TB patients to guide clinical actions and inform the policy makers. This study was aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV infection among TB patients and to describe the associated risk factors for HIV seropositivity.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted on TB registries at Metema Hospital directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS) clinic. Binary and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association of HIV seropositivity among TB patients. Odds ratio (OR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.ResultsOf the total 2096 pateints, 2005 (95.7 %) were tested for HIV. The overall HIV–TB co-infection rate was 20.1 % (404), 12.3 % (246) in males and 7.9 % (158) in females. The highest proportion of co-infection rate was observed among the patients in the age group of 25–34 years (32.4 %) and smear negative pulmonary TB patients (59.7 %). A declining trend of HIV–TB co-infection was observed during the study period, from 22.1 % (185) in 2009/10 to 12.8 % (52) in 2011/12 (X2 = 17.07, P < 0.001).ConclusionsThis study found that HIV–TB co-infection is still high in the Metema area; and occurs more frequently in males than females, and among patients in age group of 25–34 years. Thus, concerted efforts and interventions methods that target these at risk groups are recommended.
Highlights
Ethiopia is one of the countries that are highly affected by dual epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB)
The latest estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that TB is responsible for 9.0 million new cases and about 1.5 million deaths worldwide, of which, 360,000 deaths were among HIV positive people [2, 3]
Characteristics of the study participants A total of 2096 TB patients were registered at Metema Hospital directly observed therapy shortcourse (DOTS) clinic between September 2009 and August 2012
Summary
Ethiopia is one of the countries that are highly affected by dual epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB). HIV infection is a known risk factor for the development of active TB and it challenges in diagnosis and treatment of TB. This study was aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV infection among TB patients and to describe the associated risk factors for HIV seropositivity. Since the late 1980s following the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic, tuberculosis (TB) has re-emerged as an important public health concern in the world. HIV infection has been reported to associate with an increased risk of developing active TB by facilitating disease progression during primary TB infections or reactivation of latent infection [4,5,6].
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