Burden of HCV-TB Coinfection among Patients of Tuberculosis-A Hospital based Study

The prevalence of Hepatitis C virus is around 2–3% in the world with 170 million persons clinically infected with the virus. Every year 3–4 million persons are infected with HCV infection. TB-HCV coinfection is an emerging public health problem in India. Most of the cases diagnosed as suffering from TB are unaware of HCV infection as they are often asymptomatic.

The retrospective study is carried out in patients of Department of Chest and TB to study the HCV-TB coinfection in 1147 TB patients out of 1526 IPD for the period of Jan 2012 to Oct 2013.

The data of 1526 patients admitted in tuberculosis department of GGS medical college was reviewed. Out of those, 1147 patients were suffering from TB. All of them were screened for HCV.

The TB-HCV coinfection was diagnosed in 6.54% of patients suffering from tuberculosis. Three patients were having TB-HCV-HIV (triple infection) and and 30 patients were having TB-HIV coinfection. 72.3% were from the rural areas and others from the urban areas. The prevalence of HCV-TB was 65.3% in males and 34.7% in females. No patient on anti tubercular treatment had significant hepatotoxicity necessitating any interruption of treatment.

This study was based on a limited data. The impact of infection is emerging and may be a future cause of concern. TB including MDR TB is a major health problem in India. Only 33 patients were suffering from HIV and out of those only 3 had triple infection TB-HCV-HIV.

The obvious reason for the paucity of data on HCV-TB coexistence may be due to the fact that all patients suffering from TB are not screened for HCV infection. The patients having TB may be recommended for HCV screening in India. Hepatotoxicity due to anti tubercular drugs in this coinfection is not a major concern.