Gender, Age and Origin Distributions Among Tuberculosis Patients in Misurata Chest Hospital

Abstract

More than 80% of the people suffering from TB live in sub-Saharan Africa or in Asia. HIV infection is the greatest risk factor for progression to TB disease in infected persons. Immigration is an important issue in public health and in the burden of TB disease. The aims of the present study are to estimate the prevalence of pulmonary TB (PTB) and HIV-PTB among native and immigrant population in Libya and to identify the association between various socio-economic variables (occupation, origin and age). A total of 743 PTB patients were attending the Tuberculosis department at Misurata chest hospital-Libya. Anonymous patient characteristics were collected from patient’s registry in the period from 2005 to 2007. The PTB prevalence was assessed to the relationship of socio-economic variables (occupational status, origin and age) and HIV-PTB was evaluated. The results showed that the prevalence of PTB tends to be higher in younger age. Furthermore, the majority of PTB immigrants were from sub-Sahara. The unemployed patients were vulnerable to PTB disease. 743 PTB patients in this study were originated from African and Asian countries as follow: 364 (49%) were from Libya, 344 (46.3%) were from 15 Sub-Saharan countries, 30 (4%) were from 4 North African countries and 5 (0.7%) was from tow Asian countries. The results showed that PTB patients tended to be younger and a higher percent of PTB patients were sub-Saharan patients.