Journal of Lung Diseases & Treatment

Background: In several countries with a high incidence of tuberculosis (TB), direct sputum smear microscopy remains the most cost effective tool for diagnosing patients with infectious tuberculosis and for monitoring their progress on treatment. The objective of the current study was to assess the quality of laboratory service in AFB microscopy of Tigray Region. Randomly selected health facilities were participated in the external quality assessment. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20.
Results: Between December 2015 and February 2016, a total of 80 laboratories were participated. Most (87%) of the laboratories have continuous electric supply. Only 70% of the health facilities have continuous pipe water and 56.5% have no separate table for smear preparation, staining, microscopy and recording. From the distributed panel slides, 91% of the Health facilities were scored 100% concordant results but 9% of the health facilities were scored discordant results. The main reasons for discordant results were shortage of training, nonfunctional microscope, have no lens cleaning and using of unfiltered carbol fuchsin reagent.
Conclusions: The performance of health facilities for smear microscopy reading and smear quality were relatively low in this study area, because smear positivity rate and annual negative slide volume of the health facilities were below the standard. Therefore Strengthening the EQA program and technical support on smear quality indicators are recommended to ensure for better quality diagnostic service of tuberculosis.