Abstract

Worldwide, tuberculosis (TB) was one of the top 10 causes of death, and the leading cause from a single infectious
agent above HIV/AIDS. Millions of people continue to fall sick with the disease each year. Not less than one-third
of people living with HIV are also infected with TB. At autopsy, studies have found that 30 – 50% of patients have
evidence of TB. By the year 2013, about a quarter of all TB deaths occurred in HIV-positive persons and TB was
the leading cause of death in those that had HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 41% of HIV patients have TB. TB
incidence still being high, especially among the HIV infected and the prevalence of TB/HIV co-infection was largely
unknown, particularly in developing countries, including Uganda all but fuels the need for this study. To assess the
prevalence and determinants of TB-HIV co-infection among HIV-positive patients attended at KIUTH. A review of
the data study that included 500 patient records was included for this study. 37 out of 500 patient records recorded
TB-HIV coinfection. This made a prevalence of 7.4%. Sex, marital status, employment status, household income,
residence and history of alcohol or smoking were found significant whereas age (p-value: 0.5621) and education (pvalue:
0.08180) were found to be insignificant. The prevalence of HIV-TB coinfection was high with sex, patients,
marital status, employment status, household income, residence and history of alcohol or smoking found to be
significant. In contrast, age and education were found to be insignificant determinants. TB-HIV coinfection was
found to have a poorer patient outcome with increased mortality among those who were TB-HIV co-infected.
Awareness-creation on the adverse effects of TB-HIV coinfection needs to be up-scaled.
Keywords: Tuberculosis, HIV-positive, TB-HIV co-infection, Marital status, sub-Saharan Africa.