JLE

Cahiers d'études et de recherches francophones / Santé

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Impact of AIDS on the resurgence of tuberculosis and the reduced availability of hospital beds in Brazzaville, Congo Volume 5, issue 5, Septembre-Octobre 1995

Authors
Hôpital central des armées, Département de médecine, Brazzaville, Congo, Laboratoire national de santé publique, Service de virologie, Brazzaville, Congo.
  • Page(s) : 278-82
  • Published in: 1995

Our objective was twofold: firstly to evaluate the impact of AIDS on the annual increase of tuberculosis morbidity in Brazzaville; and secondly, to show its consequences on the reduced availability of hospital beds for patients treated for diseases nonrelated to AIDS. This retrospective study included 541 tuberculosis patients who were treated from 1988 to 1992 in the Department of Medicine at the Military Central Hospital in Brazzaville. The serum of all patients was tested by ELISA and Western blots for the presence of HIV. HIV and tuberculosis coinfection were very frequent (more than 30% of all AIDS cases), particularly among young people (20-45 years old). Extrapulmonary tuberculosis cases (37%) have become almost as frequent as pulmonary tuberculosis forms (42.8%) among HIV positive patients, and the clinical picture is often atypical. Tuberculosis morbidity is increasing annually because of AIDS. The longer the tuberculosis patients with AIDS remain in the hospital, the fewer beds are available for other patients. For the public health programs against AIDS in developing countries, this is becoming an urgent problem to resolve.