Epidemiological Profile of Tuberculosis in the Provinces of Laayoune and Tarfaya, Morocco (2006-2012)

Aims: Tuberculosis is considered as one of the major causes of mortality worldwide after AIDS in the recent years. The present work aims to bring out the epidemiological profile of tuberculosis in the provinces of Laayoune and Tarfaya so as to contribute to the improvement of the application WHO Anti- Tuberculosis Program and to the increase of success rates of treatment in these regions.
Methodology: This is a retrospective study based on 1331 cases of tuberculosis, all forms combined, reported to the Centre for Diagnosis and Treatment of Respiratory Diseases of Laayoune during the period between 2006 and 2012.
Results: The results show that the average age of patients is 34.97±15.47 years old while median age is 32 years. The highest incidence is observed in patients who are between 20 and 50 years old. The sex-ratio men to women, which is 1.73, is highly significant (X²=95.2, P<.001). Moreover, the number of cases is significantly higher during the winter and spring, compared to autumn and summer (X² =16.07, P<.001).
The repartition of patients according to the type of tuberculosis shows that respiratory tuberculosis represents three-quarters of cases. As for the patients' evolution, we noticed a disappearance of the symptoms as well as a general improvement for 37% of the cases that have finished their treatment. 25% of the patients healed with a negative bacillus copy. 34 deaths were registered during the study’s period. It should be mentioned that the evolution remains unknown for 14% of the cases because of their disappearance during the treatment.
Finally, we noticed a constant and remarkable increase of the annual success rate, which rose from 48% in 2006 to reach 69% in 2012.
Conclusion: In conclusion, it should be pointed out that health authorities should make more efforts for a better implementation of the national anti-tuberculosis strategy in these regions.