incidence of active tuberculosis among human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)-positive patients and evaluation of their responses to usual anti-tuberculosis medications in shiraz, south west of iran

background: human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) makes infected cases prone to opportunistic infections like tuberculosis (tb) due to impaired immunity of the body, especially multi drug resistant (mdr) ones which are a major concern. with hiv outbreak starting late in the 20th century, the international health community is observing a huge rise in the incidence of this complex disease. herein, we estimated the incidence of tb among hiv-positive individuals and their responses to anti-tuberculosis medications in shiraz, southwest of iran. materials and methods: 840 hiv-positive patients were included in this cross-sectional study. during the first examination cd4+ count and ppd test was obtained, patients were checked for other symptoms too. patients, if diagnosed with tb, received proper medication. if therapy failed, second-line therapy was prescribed for them. type of resistance was studied and recorded. patients continued their routine anti-viral therapy during the study. results: of 840 participants, 29 were diagnosed with active tb (3.4%), 76% of them were diagnosed with pcr and culture and other with acid fast. males were the majority of tb positives (82.8%). most patients suffering from tb had cd4+ count lower than 200 (55.1%); 17.2% of the cases were mdr-tb. conclusion: low cd4+ count makes the patient vulnerable to tb. it is necessary to maintain patient’s immunity in order to treat and prevent tuberculosis; so, anti-viral therapies still play important roles in preventing tb in hiv-positive patients.[ gmj.2015;4(2):115-20]