Incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in garments workers of Dhaka City, Bangladesh.

This study was conducted to find out the incidence of Pulmonary Tuberculosis (PT) in garments workers of Dhaka city and to find-out the relationship between the incidence of PT and socio-demographic factors of the respondents. From all garments factories of Dhaka city, 30 factories were included by stratified random sampling method. Then workers were selected by simple random sampling technique. Following selection, detailed history was taken and recorded in a pre-tested questionnaire. Chest X-ray, Sputum for AFB, M.T and ESR were done in the suspected cases. PT was diagnosed when any patient fulfilled predefined inclusion criteria. Out of 2400 selected workers, 2281 workers were studied finally. A total of 22 (9.6 per 1000) definite PT cases were identified. Sputum positive were 4/2281 (1.75 per 1000) cases. All were diagnosed as new cases; none had received any treatment of tuberculosis in the past. The study concludes that PT among the garments workers is a more alarming health issue than among the general population of Bangladesh. Improved and regular health check-up system and 'directly observed treatment shortcourse' (DOTS) should be implemented in the working places particularly where clusters of workers are working together.

Hypertension among cotton textile workers.

The present cross sectional study on prevalence of hypertension was carried out among 514 cotton textile workers of Shri Bapurao Deshmukh Sut Gimi, Wardha. Using standard guidelines for measuring blood pressure and standard criteria for diagnosis of hypertension, 20.2% of the subjects were found to have raised systolic and/or diastolic blood pressure. The prevalence of hypertension was significantly higher among persons aged 35 years or more, in the present occupation for 10 years or more and those working in more noisy department.