Pascalina Chanda-Kapata¹*, Mwiche Siame², Doris Osei-Afriyie³, Clementina Lwatula⁴, Patrick Katemangwe⁵, Chabwera Shumba⁶, Kennedy Malama⁷, Peter Mwaba⁸, Ali Zumla⁹, Nathan Kapata¹

¹Directorate of Disease Surveillance and Research, Ministry of Health, Lusaka, Zambia
²Directorate of Policy and Planning, Ministry of Health, Lusaka, Zambia
³Consultant, WHO Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Congo
⁴University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia
⁵Tuberculosis Laboratory, University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia
⁶Directorate of Mobile and Emergency Health Services, Ministry of Health, Lusaka, Zambia
⁷Lusaka Provincial Medical Office, Lusaka, Zambia
⁸Lusaka Apex Medical University, Lusaka, Zambia
⁹Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, and NIHR Biomedical Research centre, UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom

*Corresponding Author: Pascalina Chanda-Kapata, Directorate of Disease Surveillance and Research, Ministry of Health, Lusaka, Zambia.

Received: March 29, 2018; Published: June 09, 2018

Citation: Pascalina Chanda-Kapata., et al. “Tuberculosis in Students at The University of Zambia - Trends Over A Seven Year Period (2008-2014)”. Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 2.4 (2018).

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Sub Saharan Africa. There is paucity of information on the burden of TB at institutions of higher learning in Zambia. This study sought to determine the TB trends and treatment outcomes at a health facility based at the University of Zambia (UNZA) for a period of seven years.

Method: A retrospective review of TB records at the University of Zambia (UNZA), from 1^st January 2008 to 31^st December 2014. The variables collected included demographic data: age, sex, marital status, and information on symptoms and diagnosis (type of TB, referral to hospital, treatment outcomes, HIV status, TB and HIV co-infection). The population was stratified according to residence on campus and non-resident.

Results: A total of 669 patients diagnosed with TB in the 7 years period. 15% of the TB cases were residents on campus. The majority of the cases were new TB patients 537 (80.3%) and 92 (13.8%) were relapsed cases. 402/669 (61%) were male. Mean age was 34.4 (SD = ± 0.472). 99 of the cases were resident on campus at UNZA. TB types were: pulmonary 514 (77.83%) and extra-pulmonary 116 (17.34%). 39 cases (5.8%) had no TB type recorded. 387 cases were HIV-positive (57.9%) and HIV negative for 148 (22.1%). The HIV status was unknown for 134 cases (20.0%). There was a threefold decline in TB notification rates over 7 years.

  There was a general decline in the number of TB cases recorded at the institution over the years with 15% of the infected population resident on campus.

Conclusion: TB is an important health issue amongst University students. There is need for further studies to determine the prevalence of TB and associated risk factors in this population.

Keywords: Tuberculosis; Students; Tertiary Institution

Copyright: © 2018 Pascalina Chanda-Kapata., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.