Prevalence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis in Gondar prisoners,North West Ethiopia

Objective:To assess the prevalence and risk factors of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis among Condar town prisoners.North West Ethiopia.Methods:A cross sectional study was conducted from February to July,2008 in Condar Prison.Prisoners with cough duration of more than two weeks were involved in the study by giving three sputum samples and filling the questionnaires prepared for risk factor assessment.Acid fast staining technique was employed to delect the presence of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli in the sputum samples.Data was analyzed using SPSS version13 computer software and presented in table.Chi-square test was used to assess associations and a P-value less than 0.05 was taken as significant.Results:A total of 384 prisoners,349 male and 35 females,with a mean age of 33.3 years were involved in the study.The prevalence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis among those prisoners with cough duration of more than two wecks was 8.59%.Only the length of imprisonment had a significant association(χ~2= 18.82,P-value<0.0001) with the prevalence of tuberculosis.Conclusions:This study indicated that tuberculosis among prisoners with cough duration of more then two weeks in Gondar prison is very high.Therefore Periodic screening of the prisoners and screening of newly introduced prisoners should be practiced so as to minimise the burden of tuberculosis in prisoners.