Abstract:
An increase in global incidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and emergency of drug resistant strains of MTB have become a huge public health issue, which has adversely affected the health care delivery of patients especially in developing communities. The aim of this study is to evaluate the trend of rifampicin resistance strains of MTB among patients attending chest clinics in selected hospitals in Akure metropolis in order to know the extent of rifampicin resistant MTB in the community studied. A total of five hundred (500) sputum samples were collected from patients attending selected chest clinics in Akure metropolis and a specially designed questionnaire was used to collect their socio-demographic data. The collected sputum samples were analysed using Genexpert machine (Cepheid, Model GX-IV) to detect MTB rifampicin resistant. The study
revealed 10.2% incidence of MTB in the community sampled of which 15.7% were resistant to rifampicin. The most affected age group for MTB was age group 31-40 years with percentage occurrence of 16.3%, while for rifampicin resistant MTB it was age group 21-30 years with percentage occurrence of 33.3%. In respect to gender, a higher occurrence of MTB was observed in males (11.1%) as compared to 9.6% occurrence in females. So also, rifampicin resistance was higher in males with occurrence of 23.8% as compared to 10.0% in females. The occurrence of MTB was higher in the married (10.2%) as compared to 8.4% in the singles. On the other hand, rifampicin resistance was higher in the singles (87.5%) than 2.3% observed in the married. This study also revealed higher occurrence of MTB among the illiterates (14.7%) and higher rifampicin resistant MTB also among the illiterates (20.0%). The study revealed that consumption of alcohol,
smoking, HIV infection and illiteracy predispose people to tuberculosis. Symptoms such as coughing, fever, excessive sweat, chest pain and weight loss are very critical in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. In conclusion, with the high occurrence of MTB and high rifampicin resistant MTB 3 observed in Akure community, it becomes imperative that the health policy makers and government should increase the awareness campaign on tuberculosis prevention in the community and also encourage more researches for the development of new and more effective tuberculosis drugs by financing the project.
