Prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis among patients presenting with cough of any duration in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

BackgroundThe current practice in Ethiopia to diagnose tuberculosis is screening patients with cough for at least two weeks. A health facility based study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of smear and culture positive pulmonary TB among patients presenting with cough ≥2 weeks and MethodsA cross-sectional study design was used to recruit patients with cough of any duration from four selected health centers in Addis Ababa, between August and December 2016. Sputum samples were collected from patients reporting productive cough of any duration and screened for Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PTB) using smear microscopy and culture methods. Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates obtained from culture positive samples were characterized using RD9 deletion typing.ResultsMajority (39.7%) of the 725 study participants was in the age range of 20-30 years, and 5.0% were smear positive using smear microscopy. The prevalence of smear positive PTB among patients presented with cough duration of ≥2 weeks was significantly higher compared to those patients presented with cough duration of Mtb; 19(46.3%) from those who had cough duration of ConclusionScreening of PTB using smear microscopy alone and cough duration of at least two weeks would negatively affect early diagnosis and treatment initiation in a considerable number of PTB patients who reports cough duration of