Abstract
Prior to the discovery of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the pattern of tuberculosis (TB) prevalence witnessed a gradual drawdown and the mode of presentation was usually pulmonary. This study assesses the mortality rates of TB and HIV co-infected patients in a directly observed therapy (DOT) centre in Nigeria. The retrospective study retrieved 18 months of data from 197 patients on the TB register of a centralized DOT centre in the Ogun State, Nigeria. Data collected included age, sex, and HIV status, with TB results obtained from Genexpert. The data obtained from 197 TB patients were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square. Out of the 197 TB patients, 67.0% were males and 33.0% were females. A majority of the patients (41.6%) were within the age category of 43 years and above. This was followed by 35 – 42 years (25.4%) and 27 – 34 years (19.8%), while the lowest proportion of patients (0.5%) falls within the age brackets of 3 - 10 years. Furthermore, 92.9% of the patients were HIV negative. Using Chi-squared test, no significant difference was seen in TB occurrence to sex (p>0.05) while age contribute significantly to mortality. Co-infection of HIV/TB was 7.1% while mortality rate in this group was 28.6%. as observed in the age group 43 and above. Overall, the mortality rate in the TB patients was 2.0%. Results showed that the age was a significant contributor (p<0.05) to HIV TB co-infection among the patients. Age regressed positively with TB infection in the study population. The study concludes that the co-infection of TB and HIV was significantly associated with high mortality.