Knowledge and attitudes of secondary school students in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria towards sickle cell disease.

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted among Secondary School Students in Federal Capital Territory (FCT),Abuja Nigeria, between May and June 2010 to determine the knowledge and attitudes of the students towards Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). METHODS: The study was a cross-sectional study carried out on 600 students from 8 secondary schools located within (FCT). A multistage sampling method was used for selection of the study population. Data was collected with the aid of a pretested self-administered questionnaire and analyzed with EPI-INFO 2008. RESULTS: The age of respondents ranged from 9 to 26 years with the mean age of 15.16 (SD = 2.13). The modal age of the respondents was 10-19 years (97.8%). The male: female ratio was 1.01:1. A large number of respondents' fathers (80.7%) and mothers (70.2%) respectively, had at least secondary school education. Majority (81.8%) of the respondents claimed to have heard about sickle cell disease (SCD) but only 38.0% of them knew the cause of SCD. Slightly less than half, 292 (48.7%) of the respondents knew their genotype. Of the 292 respondents that knew their genotype, 206 (70.5%) were AA, 50 (17.1%) were AS,14 (4.8%), SS, 11 (3.8%)AC, 5 (1.7%) SC, 4 (1.4%) CC, 2 (0.7%) other types of genotype. Only 46.2% and 36.8% of them respectively, correctly identified that pre-marital genotype testing and avoidance of marriage between two persons with haemoglobin S genotype as means of preventing further spread of SCD. Factors found to be significantly associated with the knowledge of respondents' genotype were; age = 15 years, respondents' mothers' educational status, being taught about SCD in school, ever seeing somebody suffering from SCD complication, losing a relative to SCD, being in senior secondary school class and knowing the cause of SCD. CONCLUSION: This study shows that majority of the respondents did not know their genotype ,and their knowledge about the cause and prevention of SCD was poor.

Prevalence and risk factors associated with drug resistant TB in South West, Nigeria

OBJECTIVE@#To determine the prevalence and risk factors associated with drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) in South West Nigeria.@*METHODS@#A retrospective study conducted among pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients from Oyo and Osun States in South West Nigeria who had their culture and drug susceptibility test performed at the institute of tropical medicine Antwerp, Belgium between 2007 and 2009. Data on the patient's characteristics were retrieved from the TB treatment card. Univariate analysis was performed to assess the risk factors for drug resistant tuberculosis. The Level of significance was at P<0.05.@*RESULTS@#Among the 88 patients who had drug-susceptibility test result, there were 50 males and 38 females. Of the 88 patients, 55 (62.5%) had strains resistant to at least one or more anti-drugs. The proportion of TB cases with resistance to a single drug was 12.7%. The multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) rate was 76.4%. The only significant factor for the development of drug resistance and MDR was the history of previous anti TB treatment (P<0.01). Other factors such as age [OR 0.86 (0.35-2.13); P=0.72] and gender [OR 1.24 (0.49-3.14); P=0.62] were not significantly associated with drug resistance TB.@*CONCLUSIONS@#The study highlighted a high prevalence of MDR-TB among the study population. History of previous TB treatment was associated with MDR-TB. There is an urgent need to conduct a national TB drug resistance survey to determine the actual burden and risk factors associated with drug resistance TB in the country.