Tuberculosis in health care workers in Belarus

Setting: Tuberculosis (TB), including drug-resistant TB, is a serious problem in Belarus. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of TB among health care workers (HCWs) along with patient characteristics, treatment outcomes and drug resistance patterns between 2008 and 2012. Design: A retrospective national record review. Results: There were 116 HCWs with TB. Case notification rates were higher among HCWs than in the general population (349 vs. 40/100 000 in 2012). Most HCWs with TB were nurses (n = 46, 40%) or nurse assistants (n = 37, 32%), female (n = 100, 86%) and aged 25-44 years (n = 84, 72%). Most common places of work for HCWs with TB were multidrug-resistant (MDR-) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) wards (n = 23, 20%), general medical (n = 26, 22%) and non-medical (n = 34, 29%) departments. All HCWs had pulmonary TB, 107 (92%) had new TB and 103 (89%) had negative sputum smears. Of the 38 (33%) with culture and drug susceptibility testing (DST), 28 (74%) had MDR-/XDR-TB. In 109 HCWs evaluated for final treatment outcomes, 97 (89%) were successfully treated, and their results were not affected by DST status. Conclusion: This study highlights the high prevalence of recorded TB in HCWs in TB health facilities in Belarus: there is a need to better understand and rectify this problem.