Prevalence of Positive Montoux Test in the Province of Sindh

LMRJ

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a global health emergency. WHO has predicted Pakistan to be at
8th position out of the 22 countries having highest burden of Tuberculosis in the
world. At present this disease has a prevalence of >1% in our country. Inn this
study we evaluated the prevalence of positive montoux tests in the province of
Sindh It is a descriptive, one time observational study carried out at various
branches of Diagnostic Et Research Laboratory LUMHS in Sindh from January
2017 to September 2017. Mantoux test is done by injecting a regular dose of 5
Tuberculin units (0.1ml) into the skin intradermally. e results are to be read
between 48-72 hours aer the dose is given and the indurated area is measured in
millimeters. A total of 3121 patients were included. e average time of life of the
study population was 14.6 years with range from one year to 95 years old. ere
were 1614 (51.7%) males and 1507 (48.3%) female patients in the study sample.
From total 3121 patients 2805 (89.9%) were negative and 316 (10.1%) were
positive, from 316 positive patients 185 were females and 131 male patients and
mostly belonged to big cities from Hyderabad and Jamshoro were 223, Mithi 62,
Sukkur 14, Mirpurkhas 4 and othr cities. Scientic research on the MT has
revealed that a diagnosis of active case of tuberculosis is never made exclusively on
the results of this test so it was stated that MT has minimum part in the diagnosis
of active tuberculosis