The prevalence of non-tuberculous recurrent cough in-patients within Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Nontuberculous recurrent cough is becoming rampant among hospitalized patients. Aim: Hospitalized patients and out-patients in some hospitals in Cross River State were studied for the prevalence of non-tuberculous recurrent cough in the state Methods: This was carried out using standard procedures in Microbiology. Results: The bacterial isolates from the sputum samples were Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Haemophilus influenzae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Corynebacterium diphtheriae. The patients’ age group 20 – 39 years had the highest prevalence of non – tuberculous recurrent cough (46.7%) while the least prevalence of 1.0% was among the age group ≥ 80 years. The prevalence rate of 33.7% was the highest among the social class and businessmen, while the least prevalence rate of 8.2% was found among students. Out of a total of 1466 samples studied, 93.6% was non-tuberculous cases. Conclusion: Mycobacterium tuberculosis is therefore not the predominant cause of cough in the study area as at the time of this study