Magnitude of pulmonary tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infections among patients who had sputum examination at Minjar Health Center in Eastern Ethiopia: A retrospective study

Tubercle bacilli infection is a considerable medical and public health problems in Ethiopia. The disease burden is exacerbated if tuberculosis infected individuals are co-infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The aim of this study was to determine the magnitude of pulmonary tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infections among clinically suspected tuberculosis patients who examined sputum at the Minjar Health Center. Institution based retrospective data were collected in April, 2014 from those patients who had sputum examination from October 2012 to September 2013. Descriptive statistics were computed to get summary values for most variables. Chi-square was calculated to see the association between tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infections with socio-demographic variables. A total of 329 participants (54.7 males and 45.3% females) were included in the study. The overall prevalence of tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus infections from the total cases was 9.4 and 2.7%, respectively. The prevalence of tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infection among tuberculosis infected cases was 29%. Patients in the age range >18 years had higher distribution rate of 7/28 (25%) tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infections. The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis infection and co-infection with human immunodeficiency virus was higher in males than females. The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis-human immunodeficiency virus co-infections is high among clinically suspected cases. Hence, this high prevalence calls for routine screening of tuberculosis patients for human immunodeficiency virus to minimize the disease burden of tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus co-infections.