Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the support of Department of Microbiology, Hazara University Mansehra and DHQ Hospital Batkhela during the current study.
Authors’ contributions
TA: Study design, data collection and extraction, paper writing and analysis; MAJ: Study design and critical review; MK, H: Help in data collection and paper writing; MMK, AH, MW, HJ: Technical assistance and literature search; EE: Help in statistical analysis. MAJ, MK, H, MK, KAA: Critical reviewed and edited the final manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript for publication.
Funding
This study was supported by Chinese National Natural Fund (81573258), Jiangsu Provincial Six Talent Peak (WSN‐002). The funder had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data, and manuscript writing.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets used, generated and/or analyzed in this study are available free of cost from the principal author/corresponding author on reasonable request.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
This study was reviewed and approved by the ethical research committee (Advanced Studies and Research Board) of Hazara University Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan [No. HU/R&P/ASRB/2015/1995]. The study was conducted in accordance with approval guideline and prior permission was granted by the higher authority of DHQ Hospital Batkhela. To ensure confidentiality of the information collected from TB registration books, name or identification number of TB patient was not included in the data collection sheet.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests
Author details
1Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing (210009), China
2Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing (210009), China
3Department of Microbiology, Hazara University Mansehra (21300), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
4Department of Microbiology, Abbottabad University of Science and Technology Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
5Department of Genetics, Laboratory of Human Genetics, Hazara University Mansehra (21300), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
6College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xian (710069), China
7Department of Public Health, University of Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
8Department of Medical Microbiology, Dalian Medical University, 9 Western Section Lvshun South Road, Lvshunkou District, Dalian, Liaoning, China
9Genome Centre for Molecular Based Diagnostics and Research Centre, Cl-25 Block B Al-Sudais Plaza Abdalian Cooperative Society, Lahore, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
10Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Wollega University, Nekemte, Ethiopia
11Modeling of Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran
12Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
13Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
14Research School of Population Health, College of Health and Medicine, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia