LAUSR

BackgroundDrug resistant tuberculosis (TB) has become a persistent health threat in Ethiopia. In this respect, baseline data are scarce in many parts of high TB burden regions including the different zones of Ethiopia.MethodsA total of 111 culture positive M. tuberculosis isolates were recovered from TB patients and identified using region of difference (RD) 9 based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and spoligotyping. Thereafter, their drug sensitivities to Rifampicin (RIF) and Isoniazid (INH) were evaluated using GenoType MTBDRplus assay.ResultsThe result showed that 18.0% (20/111) of the isolates were resistant to either RIF or INH. Furthermore, 16.7 and 23.8% of the isolates from new and retreatment cases were resistant to any of the two anti-TB drugs, respectively. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB was detected on 1.8% (2/111) of all cases. Significantly higher frequencies of any drug resistance were observed among Euro-American (EA) major lineage (χ2: 9.67; p = 0.046).ConclusionConsiderably high proportion of drug resistant M. tuberculosis strains was detected which could suggest a need for an increased effort to strengthen TB control program in the study area.