Prevalence of Tuberculosis in a Prison in Tehran by Active Case Finding.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis [TB] is one of the most contagious infection diseases among prisoners. TB Screening plays an important role in prevention among prisoners and their visitors, also better caring of the patients. Active case findings is one of screening methods that is relatively an easy one to find TB suspected prisoners.

METHODS: This study was conducted among male prisoners in Great Prison of Tehran to screen and diagnose TB patients from October 2013 to May 2014. We used active case findings [ACF] as a screening method to find TB suspected prisoners in witch health care staffs explained TB symptoms for prisoners and individuals with those symptoms referred to the clinic for further confirming test (sputum sample tests).

RESULTS: In total of 6900 prisoners, 448 (6.5%) prisoners were TB suspected by ACF and only 9 patients were diagnosed with tuberculosis by sputum sample test, indicating the prevalence of 0.13%.

CONCLUSION: The low TB prevalence within prisoners besides considering likely common symptoms in ACF may result in many false positive cases during screening (6.5% vs. 0.13%). But, ACF is more fast, easy and affordable method to find TB suspected prisoners. Also, during this active method, prisoners will be trained about TB symptoms so, it has more permanent effect towards screening goals.