CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Tuberculosis is a disease caused by Bacteria called mycobacterium
tuberculosis, the bacteria usually attacked the lung, but Tuberculosis bacteria
can attack any part of body such as kidney, spine, and brain. If not treated
properly, tuberculosis can be fatal, tuberculosis was once leading cause of death
in the united state, and TB is spread through air from one person to another, the
bacteria are put into air when a person with tuberculosis disease of lungs or
throat coughs, sneezes, speaks or sings people nearby may breath in these
bacteria and become infected (Barnes F.P and Wizel B., 2000)
Tuberculosis is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer worldwide
due to a single infection agent, in 2011, 8.7 million people fell ill with
tuberculosis and 1.4 million died from it, over 95% of TB death occur in low
and middle income countries and it is among the top three causes of death for
women aged 15-44, in 2010, there were about 10 million orphan children as a
result of TB deaths among parents.
The estimated number of people falling ill with tuberculosis each year is
declining, although very slowly, which means that the world is on track to
achieve the Millennium Development Goal to the tuberculosis patients.
A retrospective study is aimed at pertaining the prevalence of pulmonary
tuberculosis among patient attending infectious Disease hospital, Kano was
conducted between January, 2006 -July, 2008, sputum samples were obtained
from three thousand six hundred and seventy nine (3679) patients, sample were
smeared on the glass slides, stained using Zieh neelson stain and later observed
under light (oil immersion) microscopy, the results showed that were positive
for tuberculosis had the prevalence of 541(14.7%) out of 3679 subjected , the
age group 30-43 years had the highest prevalence of 145(17.0%) 0ut of 858 of
1
PTB positive subjected, there was significant difference between age groups
and sex of subjects with PTB positivity (x2;11.07 at p=0.05 and x2=15.09 at
p=0.01); similarly the difference between the prevalence of TB in male and
female subjects between the three years period (x2=14.07 at p=0.05 and
x2=18.48 at p=0.01) was significant different, it is worthy that PTB is still a
serious diseases in this part of the world, thus there is need for stopping TB by
awareness treatment and control program (Barnes, F.P and Wizel,B., 2000).
