RESEARCH ARTICLE Prevalence of tuberculosis

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Boarding schools like colleges are one of the congregated settings that create favorable conditions for TB transmis-sion [1,2]. The crowded situation both in classrooms and dormitories increases the risk of exposure to TB and other aerosol infections. While the probability of transmission between individuals depends upon many factors, it greatly increases if TB becomes active and remains untreated; a person with active but untreated TB can infect 10–15 people per year [3]. Thus such kinds of congregated settings should be target to implement TB infection control measures. The prevalence of TB among college students in some countries like China is reported to be high [4] and there were several reported TB outbreaks in Chinese colleges [5,6] and elsewhere [5,6]. Several other studies also revealed high risk of acquiring TB infection and subsequent trans-mission among college students [7-18]. A study conducte