Abstract:
Problem Statement: HIV infection leads to immune suppression and subsequently predisposes
individuals for a variety of infections and non-infection diseases, TB is one of common
infectious disease which utilizes the opportunity of being HIV infected individual.
Objective: The aim of the study was to determine incidence and predictors of tuberculosis
among PLHIV at Arba Minch General Hospital in southern Ethiopia, 2015.
Methods: Hospital based retrospective follow up study was conducted. All HIV infected
Individuals registered at AGH and Registered from September 2007 and 2013 were source and
study population respectively. The data was collected using structured data abstraction form and
four trained ART (Antiretroviral treatment trained) nurses were used to collect and fill the data.
The data was checked for completeness and if incomplete investigator gave back to the form to
data collectors to complete, and cleaned again and entered in to Epi Info (Version 3.5.1) and
analyzed using SPSS version (IBM-20). Data was summarized by using frequency, graph, table,
mean, and standard deviation. Statistical significance was inferred at P-value <0.05. Adjusted
odd ratio with 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to determine predictors of Incidence of
Tuberculosis
Result: A total of 496 charts of HIV Infected patients’ were enrolled. Cumulative incidence of
tuberculosis among HIV infected patients were 21.4 %( 95% CI: 21.3, 21.44). In multivariable
analysis, Family size ((AOR: 2.26, 95% CI (1.14-4.50)), History of cigarette smoking( AOR:
2.82, 95% CI (1.27-6.27)), Baseline WHO clinical stage III(AOR: 20.26, (95%CI(7.09-57.6))
and IV (AOR: 22.9, 95% CI(6.91-76.4)) and Heamoglobin level((AOR: 2.56, 95% CI(1.22-
5.33)) were found to be important predictors of incidence of tuberculosis among HIV infected
patients.
Conclusion and recommendation: Relatively high incident tuberculosis cases were found
among HIV infected patients and family size, history of cigarettes smoking; Hemoglobin level
and base line WHO clinical stage were predictors of incidence of Tuberculosis. Therefore; early
initiation of HAART as per current guideline, and the finding that smoking was important
predictors for TB in Ethiopia has obvious TB control implication which requires high attention
focused on fighting against cigarette smoking in HIV infected population. Moreover,
concomitant chronic infection that cause anemia should be managed.