TUBERCULOSIS IN DETENTION - A RISK FOR PUBLIC HEALTH -

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A third of people in the world are considered to be infected each year; about 8 to 10 million people develop active disease that leads to an increased number of deaths due to TB. Our study has identified 260 patients with TB admitted to Colibasi Prison Hospital between 2006 and 2009. A considerable proportion (19.61%) of cases with TB were identified before their entry into prison and this percent confirmed that regardless of incarceration, the socio-economic status of the subjects placed them to a higher risk in developing active TB in comparison with general population; this may be one of the main reasons for the high incidence of tuberculosis observed in prison. However, the risk for TB was higher in incarcerated persons group (50.76%). According to our data, the risk of infection was 2.5 times higher for those living in the prison environment, what strongly suggests that the transmission of TB within the prison also contributes to this observed higher prevalence rate. We considered the outcome of treatment of patients with tuberculosis which were treated in the Prison Hospital Coliba i as satisfactory. The treatment success rate with al TB cases was 65.38%. Prison conditions influence the effectiveness of the treatment in the new cases: the therapeutic success was achieved in 69.18% of cases.