Prevalence of adult pulmonary tuberculosis in rural community adjacent to an oil industry, Assam

Background: To estimate the prevalence of adult pulmonary tuberculosis among rural community residing adjacent to Numaligarh Oil Refinery. Methods: The present study was conducted from July 2019 to June 2020 in a rural area adjacent to Numaligarh Oil Refinery. Total 3600 study participants aged 15 years and above were enrolled by multistage stratified random sampling method and they were interviewed for PTB symptoms. Two sputum samples were taken from eachsymptomatic individual for microscopic examination in DMC and positive cases were taken as sputum smear positive PTB. Sputum smear negative presumptive cases had undergone CXR and CB-NAAT examination. Results: Total 27 sputum smear positive cases revealing prevalence of smear positive cases 750 per lakh population. 12 CXR positive were found in the present study among them three cases were microbiologically positive by CB-NAAT exam. Overall prevalence of adult pulmonary TB was found as 1083.3 per lakh population. Conclusions: The overall prevalence of adult pulmonary tuberculosis in our study was much higher than the national average and it might be due to for delayed diagnosis of cases which leads to continuation of the transmission chain in the community.