Indoor Biomass fuel as a Higher Risk Factor of COPD and TB in HIV Positive Female Patients of Western India leading to Preterm Delivery

Shah R, Morya S and Sharma N

Published on: 2024-06-12

Abstract

It is well known that one-third of the poorest people in the world use biomass fuel for cooking and heating. It is a universally accepted fact that biomass fuel plays a significant role as a predisposing factor for tuberculosis, acute respiratory tract infections, and COPD, even in non-immune-suppressed (HIV sero-negative) individuals. As we all know, household cooking is primarily performed by women. So close association with biomass fuel and even longer duration make women more vulnerable to these RTI secondary RTI infections.
Aim: To study the effects of biomass fuel on the prevalence of RTI/tuberculosis in HIV-infected patients in Gujarat.
Material and Methods: In the present study, 961 HIV-infected patients with RTI, 300 HIV-infected patients without RRTI, and 300 HIV-uninfected patients with RTI were surveyed for use of biomass fuel or clean fuel.
Result
Conclusion: It had been surveyed, statistically analyzed, and found to be an even higher risk predisposing factor, mainly for tuberculosis and other acute respiratory tract infections in immune-suppressed HIV-seropositive patients. Here, biomass fuel had been evaluated as a risk factor in developing TB in HIV patients, and incidences of RTI in HIV sero-positive patients had been found in our study to be 2.3 times higher than those who were not suffering from HIV. Even among all these RTI patients who might acquire secondary RTI infections due to biomass fuel, 61.87% were found to be women. When only TB is considered in this study, it was found that 67.44% of women were observed to suffer from TB when compared with the same group of males. This increased exposure of women to TB and COPD in turn results in preterm delivery, which leads to the birth of low-birth weight babies if women are pregnant.