Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of health care workers’ towards tuberculosis contact tracing in a TB/HIV Prevalent setting

INTRODUCTION In 1993 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared TB a global emergency in recognition of its increasing importance as a public health problem worldwide 1 .A third of the world’s population or approximately two billion people globally, are infected with TB 1 . Botswana has one of the world’s highest burdens of TB per capita with a TB notification rate currently placing Botswana as 10 th highest worldwide 1 . The current TB notification rate in Botswana is 505 per 100,000 population per year 2 . TB contact tracing is one of the ways of determining secondary TB cases. Although previous studies have evaluated aspects of guideline implementation 3 , other aspects that are likely crucial in developing country settings have not been adequately explored. These include knowledge, attitudes and practices of health workers towards TB contact tracing. Several studies have assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices of health workers and patients on TB in general. Few studies have