Prevalence, drug-susceptibility pattern and associated factors of infection among prisoners in western Arsi zonal prisons, Oromia, South West Ethiopia.

Objectives: Each year, tuberculosis (TB) in prisons is a major worldwide health concern that results in millions of diseases. It is particularly prevalent in low socio-economic countries like Ethiopia because of the poverty, overcrowding, starvation, lack of access to basic healthcare services, and high prevalence of HIV infection in these countries.

Methods: A cross-sectional study with 259 prisoners was carried out in the western Arsi zonal prison from November to January 2021. The sputum samples were taken from suspected TB patients and evaluated using the Gene Xpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis/rifampcine test. Line probe assay was used to assess the molecular drug susceptibility of isolates from positive sputum. A bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was analyzed using SPSS version 24 packages. Odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% CI were used to quantify the degrees of association between target potential risk factors and positivity. -value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The prevalence of undiagnosed pulmonary TB (PTB) verified positive cases was 5.4% (95% CI 2.7, 8.5) out of 259 research participants that were recruited in this study. One (0.38%) occurrence of mono-drug resistance to isoniazid was found among them. In this study, variables that were significantly linked with PTB positive were age ≥30 years, smoking (adjusted OR [AOR] = 0.087, 95% CI = 0.01-0.93,  = 0.043), body mass index 18.5 kg/m, cough duration 4 weeks (AOR = 0.03, 95% CI = 0.1-0.13  = 0.001), and coughing before incarceration (AOR = 6.2, 95% CI = 3.6-10.59,  = 0.004).

Conclusion: In West Arsi zonal prisons, PTB and mono-drug resistance for isoniazid were found to be more common than in the general population.