Trends of Smear Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis Prevalence at Ambagiorgis Health Center, Northwest Ethiopia: A Ten Year Retrospective Study.

Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis continues to be the most important causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Due to health service coverage and poorly developed health information system in Ethiopia, the actual magnitude of the tuberculosis epidemic and burden of tuberculosis is not yet reported from Ambagiorgis Health Center. This study assessed the trend of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis prevalence at Ambagiorgis Health Center, Northwest Ethiopia. A retrospective study was conducted from February1 to May 30, 2015 at Ambagiorgis Health Center. Data from tuberculosis laboratory registration log book from September 2005 to August 2014 were collected using data abstraction sheet. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16 statistical package. Three thousand and six hundred ten pulmonary tuberculosis suspected patients were reviewed for smear microscopy result. The majority of the patients were females (53.8%). From the total patients, 237(6.6%) were positive for pulmonary tuberculosis by smear microscopy of which, 3.35 % were males and 3.21% were females. The higher pulmonary tuberculosis positive patients were in the age group of 15-24 years old. Age is significantly associated with pulmonary tuberculosis positivity. However, no statistical significant association was observed between tuberculosis infection and gender difference. The overall prevalence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis cases from 2005-2014 was 6.6% with the most susceptible groups are amongst the age ranges between 15–24 years. Sex played no role in the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis as there was no much difference in prevalence among male and female. In addition, low prevalence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis in the year 2013(3.9%) and higher prevalence was observed in 2008(17.4%).