Prevalence of sputum-positive pulmonary tuberculosis in tribal and non-tribal populations of the Ashti and Karanja tahsils in Wardha district, Maharashtra State, India.
METHODS
Ashti and Karanja tahsils, Wardha district, Maharashtra State, Central India.


OBJECTIVE
To find and compare the prevalence of bacillary positive pulmonary tuberculosis amongst the different tribes and in the non-tribal population.


METHODS
Prevalence study of pulmonary tuberculosis by house-to-house survey of symptoms among tribal (n = 20596) and non-tribal (n = 93 670) populations aged 5 years and over, between September 1989 and November 1990.


RESULTS
The prevalence of smear and/or culture-positive tuberculosis/100000 population was 133 in the tribal and 144 in the non-tribal population. The difference in prevalence of symptomatic individuals and sputum-positive cases among the tribal and the non-tribal populations was statistically significant only in the symptomatic individuals/100000 (P = 0.01). The prevalence of cases in both groups was higher in males than females; however this difference was significant only in the tribal group (P = 0.05). Only two of the 46 tribes encountered, the Mana and Pawara tribes, showed a high prevalence, of 730 and 612/100000, respectively. The three other tribes with positive cases (the Gond group) had prevalences comparable to that of the nontribal population.


CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of tuberculosis in tribal people was comparable to that of the non-tribal population.
Narang
P
P
Department of Microbiology, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India.
Tyagi
N K
NK
Mendiratta
D K
DK
Jajoo
U N
UN
Bharambhe
M S
MS
Nayar
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013183:Sputum / Q000382:microbiology*; D015996:Survival Rate; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*