Prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus infection in a cohort of tuberculosis patients at Metema Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: a 3 years retrospective study

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia is one of the countries that are highly affected by dual epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB). HIV infection is a known risk factor for the development of active TB and it challenges in diagnosis and treatment of TB. Thus, it is essential to determine the epidemiology of HIV infection among TB patients to guide clinical actions and inform the policy makers. This study was aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV infection among TB patients and to describe the associated risk factors for HIV seropositivity. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on TB registries at Metema Hospital directly observed therapy short-course (DOTS) clinic. Binary and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association of HIV seropositivity among TB patients. Odds ratio (OR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: Of the total 2096 pateints, 2005 (95.7 %) were tested for HIV. The overall HIV–TB co-infection rate was 20.1 % (404), 12.3 % (246) in males and 7.9 % (158) in females. The highest proportion of co-infection rate was observed among the patients in the age group of 25–34 years (32.4 %) and smear negative pulmonary TB patients (59.7 %). A declining trend of HIV–TB co-infection was observed during the study period, from 22.1 % (185) in 2009/10 to 12.8 % (52) in 2011/12 (X(2) = 17.07, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study found that HIV–TB co-infection is still high in the Metema area; and occurs more frequently in males than females, and among patients in age group of 25–34 years. Thus, concerted efforts and interventions methods that target these at risk groups are recommended.