Prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in the District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Aim/Objectives/Background Pulmonary tuberculosis is one of the major threats to human health and is the leading cause of death worldwide. Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes the disease in humans. The present study deals with to determine the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in the general population of district Bannu. Patients and methods All 745 registered and suspected patients of the pulmonary tuberculosis were diagnosed during the study period by sputum smear microscopy. The data were collected from the tuberculosis (TB) control register at the national tuberculosis control center at Khalifa Gul Nawaz (KGN), Teaching Hospital, Bannu, from January through December 2018. The data were classified into six age groups (in years) including <5, 5–14, 15–30, 31–45, 46–60, and >60. Percentage case positivity was determined for both sex and age groups. Results and Conclusions The number of positive cases of the disease were 133 (17.85%) out of 745 patients enrolled for diagnosis of the disease. Females represented 57.14%, whereas males accounted for 42.86% of the disease. The highest prevalence of disease occurred in the age group 46–60 y (34.59%), followed by 15–30 y (29.32%), >60 y (19.55%), 31–45 y (12.03%), and 5–14 y (4.51%). Age group <5 years demonstrated no positivity. As a whole, age group ≥15 years demonstrated 95.49% positivity, and females showed a higher or equal rate of pulmonary TB than males in all the months except January and February. Females, age group 46–60 years, as well as individual aged ≥15 years were the predominant groups regarding the prevalence of disease. The disease was prevailed in people of age ≥5 years, and it mainly occurred in the months of summer. When grouped into similar age groups, females predominated at all the age groups, except age group 5–14 years.