Voluntary Counseling and Testing and Risk Factors for HIV infection among Tuberculosis patients attending TB Clinic of Tuberculosis Cluster

Abstract

The cross-sectional study among new tuberculosis patients was conducted to determine the acceptant rate for HIV testing by voluntary technique, the prevalence of HIV infection and risk factors for HIV infection at Tuberculosis Cluster. All new tuberculosis patients who received routine services during September 2006 - March 2007 were enrolled into the study with the total number of 187 cases. The services were provided according to the National Guideline for Integrated TB and HIV/AIDS Implementation. Some interested data were collected from the designed questionnaire and from the routine data collection system. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive and analytic statistics with EPIINFO for Windows software. The results revealed that the acceptant rate for HIV testing with the voluntary technique was as high as 84 percent. The prevalence of HIV infection among tuberculosis patients was 19.7 percent. According to the high acceptant rate, the result of this prevalence could be the reliable statistics. The main risk factors for HIV infection among those who had HIV sero-positive, were having more than 1 sex partners, and intravenous drug use. Therefore, the risk assessment for HIV infection among tuberculosis patients which is one of the main process of voluntary counseling and testing, should be specially focused on. Moreover, the health education of these risks should be widely disseminated to all of the tuberculosis patients and to the general population to avoid and prevent the risk behaviors in order to prevent HIV infection.