Okonkwo RC, Onwunzo MC, Chukwuka CP, Ele PU, Anyabolu AE, Onwurah CA, Ifeanyichukwu MO, Akujobi CN, Enemuo E and Ochei KC
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health problem in the developing world, partly due to a steady increase in the frequency of Mycobacteria tuberculosis strains becoming resistant to one or more of the first line anti-TB drugs. Microscopy is the most available diagnostic technique but the method cannot test for drug resistance. Culture method is the gold standard important in diagnosis and drug resistance testing, but it has the problem of prolonged turnaround time, high costs and unavailability. The Gene Xpert method for XpertMTB/Rif assay, allows rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis/multiple drug resistance Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB/MDRTB). The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of the XpertMTB/Rif assay method in the diagnosis of MTB and drug resistance - tuberculosis (DR-MTB) within one year of its installation in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Nigeria. Sputum samples from 586 patients who presented at the DOTS laboratory of the hospital between 17th June 2014 and 17th June 2015 were processed using the XpertMTB/Rif assay machine. One hundred and sixteen (116) (19.8%) of the 586 screened patients had MTB positive results, 8 (6.9%) of the 116 MTB positive patients had rifampicin resistant TB. Also total of 336 out of whole total of 586 patients had HIV positive and 42(12.5%) of 336 HIV positive patients had MTB positive results. These depict the usefulness of Xpert assay method in MTB/MDRTB diagnosis.
