Studies on the distribution of clinically diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

A study was conducted in January, 2005 to December, 2006 to ascertain the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis among patients who attended chest clinics in some randomly selected hospitals, clinics and health centres in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Investigations were carried out using the two popular diagnostic criteria for pulmonary tuberculosis namely the specific Ziehl Neelsen (ZN) methods and chest X-ray. A total of 962 patients with clinical signs and symptoms of tuberculosis were studied. The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis 559 (58.1%) with 1:1 male/female ratio. There was no significant difference between ZN sputum smear positive and chest X-ray in the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in the studied population at 95% confidence level. The possible reasons for the high prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis may be attributed to increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS, high rate of poverty, emergence of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacteria and to a lesser extent, smoking and diabetes. Keywords: pulmonary tuberculosis, sputum, chest X-ray, Ziehl Neelsen. Nigerian Journal of Parasitology Vol. 29 (2) 2008: pp. 106-109