Prevalence and Treatment Outcome of Smear Positive Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in General Population of District Swat, Pakistan

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is responsible for causing TB disease. Primarily it infects the lungs, which is known as pulmonary tuberculosis when the disease disseminates to other parts of the body known as extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. Recently, WHO ranked Pakistan the fifth TB endemic country in the world. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and treatment outcome of smear-positive PTB patients among all forms of TB registered with TB centre at District swat. Two-year data from January 2016 to December 2017 were reviewed. In this study period, complete information of total 1392 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) were reviewed. Of these, 626(45%) were founded to be males, while 766(55%) were females with an overall mean age of 32.9 years. In the age-wise distribution, this study showed a high number of cases, 657(47.3%) in the economic age group from 16-30. In contrast, the lowest number of cases, 112(8%), were recorded in the 60 years older adults. Of the two-year study period, 745(53.5%) patients were recorded in 2017, while 647(46.5%) patients were recorded in 2016. The overall prevalence rate in the 100,000 population was calculated to be 58.8(0.058%). Based on seasonality, high cases notification was reported in quarter 2 (April- June), while lower cases notification was recorded in quarter 4 (October-December). Treatment outcome record showed that 861(61.9%) were cured, 452(32.5%) treatment completed, 34(2.4%) died, 13(0.9%) treatment failed, 32 (2.3%) lost to follow up, and no patient was transferred to other facilities. In conclusion, still, PTB is prevalent in the district, and the overall treatment success rate is low.