Pulmonary Aspergillosis among tuberculosis positive patients attending infectious diseases hospital in Kano-Nigeria

Abstract

Tuberculosis is one of the serious lungs-related air-borne diseases that mostly affects people with low economic status in resource limited settings of developing countries, especially in Africa and Asian. The disease is common among poor people with low immunity which pave way for opportunistic pathogens like Aspergillus species to set in, resulting in secondary infection. The aim of the research was to determine the prevalence of aspergillosis among TB patients in Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), Kano. As methods, sputum samples from the enrolled subjects were cultured onto Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) and incubated, after which the colonies produced were characterized accordingly. Based on the obtained results, a prevalence of 38(27.3%) was recorded, with three different Aspergillus species; A. niger 25(65.8%), A. flavus 9(23.7%), and A. fumigatus, 4(10.5%) been implicated. According to the results, males were more at risk 24(63.2%) than females 14(36.8%) in the study area. Age related infection revealed that age limit of 41-50 had the highest infection rate 11(28.95%) while 51-60 and 71-80 were the least affected with 3(7.89%) each. It can therefore be concluded based on the findings that Aspergillus species as opportunistic pathogens gets refuge in TB patients causing secondary infection as a result and male were the most affect by this phenomenon in the study area.