ABSTRACT
Background: Universal HIV testing for all TB patients regardless of their individual risk factors is being recommended by most of the authorities including WHO in recent guidelines
Objective: To determine the prevalence of HIV infection among Pulmonary TB patients presenting at Department of Pulmonology, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan
Patients and Methods: In this cross sectional study, one hundred consecutive newly registered smear positive pulmonary TB patients presented at Department of Pulmonology, Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan from 1[st] April to 31[st] December 2010 were included in this study. Interviews were conducted to record the sociodemographic data and various HIV related risk factors for all patients. Consent was taken from the patients to be included in this study and for HIV testing. Test was done by ICT method at department of pathology of this institute. The data was entered and analyzed in SPSS version 15
Results: Out of 100 TB patients in this study, 56 were male and 44 were female. Majority [51%] of the patients were uneducated. Only 24% were earning more than ten thousands rupees per month. Sixty six percent patients were aged between 15-49 years. All the patients gave their consent for HIV testing. Only 4 of the 100 subjects had travelled abroad, 8 had history of blood transfusion and none of the patients admitted any history of drug abuse. None of the 100 patients in this study was positive for HIV infection
Conclusion: Despite the presence of risk factors in considerable number of participants of this study, HIV infection was not detected in any of the Pulmonary TB patient. This finding put a question mark over universal recommendation of HIV testing in all TB patients worldwide. However, larger study including all TB patients, both Pulmonary as well as Extra Pulmonary is required to confirm this finding