Background: Tuberculosis remains an important public health problem especially in the developing world. The tuberculosis burden is worsened by the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant bacteria. The aim of current study was to evaluate detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in respiratory and non-respiratory specimens and mutations associated with rifampicin (RIF) resistance directly from specimens in less than 2 hours by using GeneXpert MTB/RIF. Method: A total of 511 patients attended to the TB center in Misan/Iraq from January 2016 to February 2018. These patients were clinically diagnosed or suspected to have TB. The samples were examined by GeneXpert assay. For extra pulmonary fluid samples, the same test was done. Results: Out of 511 cases, 90(17.6%) were detected as having M. tuberculosis─ 86(95.5%) were rifampicin sensitive and 4(4.4%) were rifampicin resistant. Also, 79(87.7) were pulmonary samples and the remaining 11(12.2) cases were extrapulmonary specimens (lymph node aspirate, pleural fluid, saliva, abscess and bronchoalveolar lavage). Conclusions: GeneXpert assay is a new rapid molecular test in the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directed from pulmonary and extra pulmonary specimens and detection of resistance to antibiotics(Rifampicin). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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