Incidence of tuberculosis among health care workers in Mongolia

Background Transmission of tuberculosis (TB) from patients to health care workers (HCWs) is a global issue. Our country is one of the 7 countries with high TB morbidity among 37 countries of the WHO, Western Pacific Region.

Methods and findings We conducted a retrospective analysis of reporting form of new case of TB at the Tuberculosis Department of National Center for Communicable Disease, Mongolia. Which is cases reported from 21 provinces and 9 districts of Ulaanbaatar city from January 2007 to December 2009. We obtained the list of HCWs with TB from “line list of tempore office leave's” among health care workers in Human Resource Department of National Center For Communicable Diseases. We assessed 10237 reporting form of new case of TB. In 2007-2009, there were 43.3%(4436) unemployed people, 9.7% (994) students, 8.8%(901) pupils, 7.0%(712) pensionaries of all registered cases. A total cases 18.5 percentage was students. A total 111 health care workers were developed TB throughout country and it is 1.1% of total cases. A total cases of health care workers; 30.6% (34) nurses, 28%(31) doctors, 15.3%(17) house keepers, nurses are most affected TB from other health care workers. Doctor's who are working in TB and the judicial department, surgeons, dentists, soum and family practitioners are most affected compared other doctors. Conclusion Among health care workers who are working in tuberculosis hospital more risk of get developed tuberculosis. We need to more study and analysis of risk of tuberculosis infection and disease associated with work in health care settings.