Study of Prevalence of Drug Resistant Tuberculosis in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Pulmonary tuberculosis with multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a major cause of concern in the developing countries. The present study was carried out to study the prevalence of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in clinical isolates at Sir Sunderlal hospital in Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, which is a tertiary care hospital. One hundred and eighty nine (189) sputum samples were collected from clinically suspected cases of tuberculosis and subjected to Zeihl-Neelsen stains (ZN) and culture on Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium and 46 cultural isolates were obtained and subjected to drug susceptibility against Isoniazid (INH) and Rifampicin (RIF). A total of nine (19.5%) isolates were found to be resistant against INH and two strains (4.5%) was found to be resistant against both RIF and INH. No strain was found to be resistant against Rifampicin alone. The present study revealed the presence of 4–6% of multi-drug resistant M. tuberculosis infection in patients attending Sir Sunderlal hospital in Banaras Hindu University. This emphasizes the need for strengthening laboratory services for timely diagnosis of MDR TB.