Determination of drug sensitivity pattern of agents of pulmonary tuberculosis from Kumasi, Ghana
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Date
2005-11-10
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Abstract
Despite the availability of drugs and vaccine, tuberculosis remains a formidable public
health problem in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. An important contributing factor is the emergence of strains resistant to the main first line treatment drugs, posing great threat to TB Control Programs. This study was therefore carried out in an urban setting of Ghana to assess the prevalence and drug susceptibility patterns in patients attending the Chest Clinic of Komfo Anokye Teaching hospital in Kumasi, Ghana.
In all, 222 sputum samples were collected from 111 newly diagnosed sputum smear positive TB patients and cultured on Lowenstein-Jensen egg-based media. The isolates were then identified by conventional biochemical assays followed by the determination of susceptibility patterns to the four main anti-TB drugs; Isoniazid, Streptomycin, Rifampicin and Ethambutol, used in Ghana by the standard proportional method. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain standard demographic data as well as previous history of TB treatment.
Out of the 82 isolates, 79 (96.3%) were identified as M tuberculosis complex and the rest, 3 (3.7%) as environmental mycobacteria.
The drug resistant patterns of the four drugs were as follows: 7 (8.5 %) strains were resistant to isoniazid; 1 (1.2%) to rifampicin; 12 (14.6%) to streptomycin; 5 (6.1%) to ethambutol. Thus, 25 (30.4 %) of the isolates were resistant to at least one of these drugs.
Resistance to rifampicin and isoniazid was observed in 1(1.2%) of the isolates.
Findings from this study indicate a low prevalence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis isolates in pulmonary TB patients from Kumasi, Ghana.
Description
A thesis presented to the Department of Clinical Microbiology, School of Medical Sciences, College of Health Sciences
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Master of Philosophy, 2005