Pulmonary Tuberculosis Among Health Care Workers at Two Designated DOTS Centers in Urban City of Ibadan, Nigeria (Report‪)‬

The risk of transmitting Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB) from infected patients to health care workers (HCWs) has been recognized for many years (1). The risk depends on the settings, occupation, patient population and effectiveness of the TB control measures (2). The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed practical and low cost interventions to reduce nosocomial transmissions of TB in resourced constrained settings (3). These recommendations emphasize prompt diagnosis and rapid treatment of cases rather than use of expensive technologies like isolation rooms and respirators (3). However, despite the widespread implementation of the Directly Observed Therapy Short Course (DOTS) strategy, which is internationally recommended, compliance with these simple guidelines is generally poor in low-income countries which harbour high burden of the disease (4). In Nigeria and in other high burden countries, the primary focus of the National TB Control Programmes (NTCP) is scaling-up of DOTS services while nosocomial transmission of the disease is relegated to the background (5). As a result, TB infection control interventions are not routinely implemented, in contrast to what happens in high income countries with low prevalence of TB where infection control policy is routinely observed (5).