Prevalence of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in health students, El Salvador

Abstract

Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is distributed worldwide and has a rate of 32.3 per 100,000 inhabitants in El Salvador. Health personnel and in particular the person in the process of training when starting their clinical practice increases their exposure. Latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), that is, the state of persistent immune response to stimulation by Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens, which is not accompanied by clinical manifestations of active tuberculosis, is detected through the tuberculin skin test or Mantoux test, a method to determine whether a person is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in health´s area students, through the tuberculin test. The population under study were the students medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of El Salvador. A sample of 140 randomly selected students was considered as a sample. The results showed that, of 118 under 30 years of age, a prevalence of 22.03% was obtained for the tuberculin test (PPD), 50% of the had a PPD of zero mm; it is evident that there is no tuberculin test for tuberculin. It is evidente that there is no significant difference between both sexes. In conclusion, the results of the research suggest that PPD-positive may have latent tuberculosis infection and PPD-negative, may represent important longitudinal research that shows occupational risks when entering hospital internships.