Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis is a disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and it is easily transmissible by inhalation of air droplets from an infected individual. The presence of tuberculosis has become a public health issue globally, mainly due to its means of transmission and long period of treatment.
Materials and methods: This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of this disease in two public hospitals, which were the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH) and the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), all in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Results: The study was carried out on 555 (269 from BMSH and 286 from UPTH) subjects visiting the health facilities and thus, recorded a total prevalence of 29.2% in all. BMSH recorded 30.9% prevalence while UPTH recorded 27.6% prevalence respectively. Patients within the ages 30-39 made up 35.8% of the total prevalence, while those who were less than 10 years old made up 1.9% of the total prevalence. Male subjects made up 63% of the prevalence while females made up 37% of the prevalence.
Conclusion: The BMSH is a state government owned specialist hospital and so this may have accounted for the increased prevalence as most patients believed they will be well attended to speedily when compared with the UPTH which is a federal government owned facility with a lot bottle neck protocols. It is however important that continued surveillance be carried out as well as free or subsidized TB drugs be made available for patients confirmed to be TB positive. Other means of reducing its prevalence could be quarantining patients until the bacterium has been cleared from their system, so as to avoid cross contamination and transmission to healthy persons whether at home, work or on the road, even as reduction of overcrowding in schools, churches, mosques and prisons would certainly help to reduce the burden in our remote settings/villages.

Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Infection; Risk factors; Prevalence