Prevalence of Tuberculosis/HIV co-infection among HIV suspects accessing care at Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Tuberculosis (TB) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are endemic diseases in Nigeria, and their comorbidity has had an undesirable impact on the management of these diseases in resource-poor setting. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of TB/HIV co-infection among HIV suspects accessing care at Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH), Okolobiri, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The survey was conducted from July to December 2023. The study population was persons accessing care at the Heart-to-Heart Clinic of the NDUTH. Subjects were selected by simple random sampling and screened for HIV infection according to the national guidelines for HIV testing. Patients confirmed positive for HIV were also screened for TB using Ziehl-Neelsen and by Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT), following the National guidelines. Out of 320 samples screened, 128(40%) were confirmed positive for HIV. Out of the number confirmed positive for HIV, 32(25%) were positive for TB/HIV and 6(4.7%) were positive for Rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB/RIF). Chi-Square analysis using SPSS v20 revealed a statistically significant associations between sex, age, residence, education and HIV cases, and also between sex, residence, occupation and TB/HIV cases (p<0.05). However, there was no statistically significant association between sex, age, residence, occupation and MTB/RIF, as well as between alcohol and smoking behaviour with HIV, TB/HIV and MDR-TB (p>0.05). The high prevalence of TB/HIV in this survey reemphasises the necessity for concurrent screening for TB in persons living with HIV, for early diagnosis and treatment.