AN EVALUATION OF TREATMENT OUTCOME IN TUBERCULOSIS DIRECTLY OBSERVED TREATMENT SHORT COURSE FACILITIES IN JIGAWA STATE, NIGERIA (2010–2014)

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem worldwide. It is estimated that 2 billion people, a third of the world population, have TB infection, but are not down with the disease.  Globally, incident cases of TB showed a rising trend, with a 6.6 million reported in 1990, 8.3 million in 2000, 9.24 million in 2004, and an estimated 9.27 million incident cases in 2007. The aim of this study was to evaluate the treatment outcome of TB patients in Nigeria in the state of Jigawa. A cross sectional retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the treatment outcome in directly observed treatment with a short course for tuberculosis (TB DOTS) in facilities in the state between the years 2010 to 2014. The study population were all the patients with TB, who had access to DOTS therapy. Data were collected from the various local governmental areas for tuberculosis control (LGA TB) register. The LGA TB control registers contained basic information of the patients, and a statistical software SPSS-V22.0 was used to analyse the data. A total of 963 TB patients were studied.  More than half (57.4%) of the patients were male, and nearly three- fourths (71.2%) of the patients accessed care from urban local government areas in the state. The greater majority (96.3%) of the cases had pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). Among the patients, more than two-fifths (45%) were cured, and a little over one-fifth (20.6%) of them were HIV positive. This study revealed that the treatment success rate (TSR) in the Jigawa State of Nigeria was higher than the overall TSR of Nigeria, and the defaulter rate in this state was lower than the Nigerian average.