Active case finding for tuberculosis in tea gardens of Bangladesh: A cross-sectional survey

Tea garden populations with poor socio-economic status are at risk of developing TB. The active case finding (ACF) approach is effective in finding TB among the people at risk. We have conducted ACF for TB to find people with presumptive TB in the tea gardens of Sylhet division to identify TB disease. It was a cross-sectional survey conducted at the household level, in the randomly selected three tea gardens of Sylhet division. The selected population was 20,215 and was screened for TB presumptive symptoms between July and Oct 2022. Each presumptive had required TB testing, which includes GeneXpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) or Sputum microscopy, X-ray, and Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) if there was gland swelling. Around 99.6% (20,127/20,215) of the…