Abstract

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Drug resistance (DR) is a major global health concern and currently implicated in fuelling the burden of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Nigeria. Overall, DR poses serious public health threat to TB control programmes particularly in TB endemic countries with limited resources. However, early and rapid detection of rifampicin resistance (RR), a surrogate marker for MDR-TB is important to reduce treatment period and transmission; with the overall goal of reducing the burden of the disease. The study successfully determined the prevalence of RR Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) among presumptive pulmonary TB patients in Lagos and its environs. A retrospective study involving 1,453 TB patients was conducted using data extracted from the clinical register of presumptive TB patients screened for MTB and RR-TB using Xpert MTB/RIF assay at the Centre for Tuberculosis Research, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) between January, 2018 and August, 2019. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. Result shows that the overall prevalence of TB was 15.3% (222/1453). MTB infection was detected in 79 locations out of which eight had a high prevalence (15.7%-26.1%) of the disease. Notably, from the patients, RR-TB was 5.9% (13/222) among all TB confirmed cases, with four (30.8%) being females and those infected ranging from 22 to 75 years (34.85±15.01) years; with one person (male) being co-infected with HIV. This study highlights the prevalence of 5.9% rifampicin-resistance among pulmonary TB patients in the urban and peri-urban areas of Lagos, South-Western Nigeria.

Keywords: Prevalence, Rifampicin-resistance, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, GeneXpert.