Abstract

PREVALENCE OF TUBERCULOSIS INFECTION AMONG IRAQI PATIENTS

Shatha Thanoon Ahmed*, Ruqaya Mustafa Ali and Batool Ali Shihab

Abstract

In the period from 1st of February 2015 to 1st of August 2015, different clinical specimens were collected from 1173 patients attending the Specialized Chest and Respiratory Disease Center /National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for Tuberculosis in Baghdad. The results of direct microscopically examination using Zeihl- Nelsen(ZN) stain for 1173 clinical specimens followed by culturing on Lowenstein - Jensen medium (L.J) showed that 193(16.5%) specimens were positive by direct examination while 253(21.6%) specimens were positive by culturing on L.J medium and the most of culture positive specimens were sputum specimens 220/253(87%). The majority of TB cases were obtained from Baghdad city (67.2%) than other governorates (32.8%), the males were more affected (62.5%) than females (37.5%) and most patients had belonged to the age group 25-34 years (25.7%), while the lowest age group was

Keywords: M. tuberculosis, Iraq, TB.