Assessment of the Prevalence of Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients at Nakfa Hospital from 2014-2019, Eritrea

BackgroundTuberculosis, an infectious disease, is one of the top 10 causes of death, and the leading cause from a single infectious agent M. tuberculosis. According to recent WHO estimate report, at least 3100 new TB cases occur every year in Eritrea. However, very little information is available in Eritrea related to area specific prevalence of tuberculosis and risk factors attributed to it. This is a retrospective study aimed to assess the prevalence of tuberculosis disease among patients attending at Nakfa Hospital, Eritrea. MethodsA retrospective study was conducted on patients visiting Nakfa Hospital, 221km north of Asmara, Eritrea from April 2014 to March 2019. Data was extracted from secondary data sources like patient admission records and laboratory registers at Nakfa Hospital. ResultsA total of 1100 patients were examined for tuberculosis using acid fast staining test. The overall prevalence of smear positive pulmonary TB cases was 7.8% (86 cases out of 1100). Females (8.2%) were more prone to have a positive Tuberculosis smear than males (7.4%). According to severity of infection, 38(3.5%) of subjects were +1 positive, whereas 23(2.1%) and 24(2.2%) of patients were +2 and +3 positives respectively. The highest prevalence of pulmonary TB was observed in the adult age group of 41-60 years (11%) and a comparatively higher number of cases was recorded in age group 21-40 years (8.3%). Adults aged between 41 to 60 had a two times more likelihood to be infected with Tuberculosis than those aged below 20 years old. Moreover, pulmonary tuberculosis was highly prevalent among middle age (20-60) than any other age class in all study years (2014-2019). The pulmonary TB cases were highly predominant during the year 2014 which was 16.8% (19 of 113 subjects) whereas the almost a quarter of it (4.5%) was recorded in following year. Based on locality, the highest rate of infection was observed in Adobha (25%), a town at border of Sudan and Eritrea, in which patients who came from Adobha had 4 times more likelihood to be infected than those from Nakfa town. ConclusionThis study showed Nakfa subzone has relatively increased prevalence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis than the average WHO estimate for the country. Therefore, appropriate policies and strategies for prevention, targeted detection of cases and treatment are required to reinforce Tuberculosis control programs.