Prevalence of smear positive tuberculosis among outpatient attendees, the case of the Tamale Teaching Hospital

There is paucity of data on the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) among out-patient attendees from individual Institutions and Health Care Facilities performing sputum smear mi-croscopy in Ghana. This retrospective study analyzed sputum smear microscopy results among pulmonary TB suspected patients presenting to the Tamale Teaching Hospital in the Northern Region of Ghana. Sputum smear microscopy for Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) results of new suspected pulmonary TB (Diagnosis) patients and their demographic data comprising age and sex recorded from January 2004 to December 2010 were retrieved from the TB Laboratory Register (TB04) of the Bacteriology unit and analyzed. Out of a total of 5,720 registered cases, 4,762 (83.3%) were new pa-tients with suspected pulmonary TB (diagnostic cases). This comprised of 2,766 (58.1%) males and 1,996 (41.9%) females giving a female to male ratio of 1:1.4. Assessment of recorded data for newly suspected pulmonary TB patients rose from a minimum of 165 (9.9%) in 2004 to a maximum of 948 (19.9%) in 2009. Out of a total of the 4,762 recorded new cases, 620 were sputum smear positive yielding positivity rate of 13.0%. The positivity rate on a year-on-year basis was 15.7 % (2004), 15.8