Fungal Contaminants Are Responsible for Delay in Diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Back ground: The purpose of this study was to investigate possible fungal growth containments during Mycobacteriumtuberculosis cultures in solid media leads to delay in diagnosis of tuberculosis. A total of 800 clinical sputum samples were collected from the out patients attending to district tuberculosis center Warangal and Karunalayam care and treatment center for HIV Karunapuram Warangal. Method: The cultures were grown on Lowenstein-Jensen [LJ] medium after decontamination by using NACl-NAOH method for sputum. Growth was reported every day in the first week,from 2nd to 8th week reporting was done continues week. Fungus was found in the early of first week from 3 day of inoculation and identified contaminates were carried in to fungal media and the growth was observed between 3-5days for filamentous fungi.Result: 45contaminates were found from 2013- 2018 all were identified as fungal culture and no bacterial contamination was able to found. Conclusion: Based on this study we recommend that there is a need for improving aseptic techniques to be maintained during transporting the sputum sample, opening the sample, decontamination, inoculation and solid media preparation in order to reduce the level of fungal contaminants in TB cultures so as to improve the detection rate.