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Background and purpose: Tuberculosis is an acute/chronic, infectious and necrotizing disease involving different organs of the body, particularly the lungs. Since controlling, screening, and treatment of people infected with smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis has been highlighted in national and global objectives, this study aimed at conducting an epidemiological investigation of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients and describing and analyzing the conditions to provide efficient suggestions to improve the status quo. Materials and methods: The present study described and analyzed the existing data. A checklist consisting of variables such as age, gender, nationality, place of residence, results of mucus smears at the beginning, at the end of the second month and at the end of the treatment, was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and univariate and multivariate regression of the collected data were carried out using Excel and SPSS 16. Results: The total number of identified tuberculosis cases during the study were 1296 among which 48.2 percent were smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis, 24.5 percent were smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis and 27.3 percent suffered from extra-pulmonary tuberculosis. The incidence of smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis was 4.3 in one hundred thousand people. It was shown that 57.5 percent of the identified smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis was males, while 42.5 percent were females the mean age of the participants was 49.67 ± 21.60 years. Conclusion: Epidemiological pattern observed in this study was consistent with other similar studies. In order to achieve the millennium development goal (50 percent decrease in tuberculosis prevalence and eliminating the disease up to the year 2050), and the national goals of tuberculosis controlling program, it is suggested that educating, screening and on time treatment of the smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients be considered at all levels of the health network as well as private sectors and physicians' offices.

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Background and purpose: Investigating and forecasting the different methods of labor can improve the knowledge about health problems in the future and the ability to develop effective interventions and prepare relevant resources. This study aimed at determining the trend and forecasting for cesarean section (c-section) and natural child birth in Mazandaran province, Iran.

Materials and methods: A longitudinal study was performed using all registered data regarding labors in governmental and private maternities in Mazandaran province. The number of childbirth from 2007 to 2014 were entered into SPSS 16 software. The best model was selected based on autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation diagrams in Ljung-Box significance level as well as the least AIC.

Results: The corresponding figures for 2007 to 2021 for cesarean and natural child birth were 19245, 15770 and 14382, 16385, respectively. The growth rate in private sectors was 17.7% (from 2007-2008). These rates were also observed to be 5.8% and 12.3% in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The results of forecasting revealed delivery growth in private sectors until 2021.

Conclusion: The c-section rate would decrease to 35% in 2021 if the healthcare reform interventions continue. This rate is still much more than the optimal c-section rate recommended by World Health Organization

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Background and purpose: In December 2019, a series of pneumonia cases of unknown origin were reported in Wuhan, China, named by the World Health Organization as COVID-19. The risk factors for developing the disease of COVID-19 are still not well known, but evidence shows that some factors, including respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis, are important risk factors in the disease of COVID-19. It should be noted that tuberculosis, like SARS-COV-2, is mainly transmitted through breathing and affects the lungs. Also, some studies show that infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes more rapid and severe pneumonia symptoms in COVID-19 and is the main cause of death due to severe disease. Considering that the disease of COVID-19 is a newly emerging pandemic and the risk factors related to its incidence and severity are still being investigated and considering that tuberculosis is a curable infectious disease that can affect other respiratory diseases. This study was conducted to investigate the probable and definite frequency of COVID-19 (COVID-19) in the first and second peaks of the coronavirus pandemic among patients with a history of tuberculosis.
Materials and methods: This study was descriptive-cross-sectional and the study population included patients with a history of tuberculosis whose diagnosis date was between 2015 and 2020. The number of these samples was equal to 1532. The sampling method was census. The time of investigation in terms of contracting COVID-19 was after the first peak and during and after the second peak of Corona (from the second half of May 2019 to November 2019). The data collection tool included a checklist containing demographic variables and clinical symptoms related to COVID-19. The method of collecting information was in the form of telephone interviews and document review. Data collection was done by trained interviewers. For this purpose, the questioners were first given the necessary training on how to complete the checklist. Data entry was done in Excel software and transferred to SPSS V.16 software for analysis. The description of the variables is presented in terms of number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and median. A chi-square test was conducted to compare the grouped variables.
Results: In this study, the prevalence of probable and definite cases of COVID-19 among patients with a history of tuberculosis was reported as 5.5% (85 people), and suspected, probable and definite cases were reported as 15.6% (239 people). Also, there was no correlation between age groups, gender, place of residence, type of tuberculosis, marriage, diabetes, kidney disease dialysis, immunodeficiency,, and liver disease with the prevalence of COVID-19 among patients with a history of tuberculosis. It should be noted that in this group of patients, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, chemotherapy, high blood pressure, and brain and nerve diseases were related to the spread of COVID-19. Also, the highest frequency of suspected, probable, and definite COVID among patients with a history of tuberculosis was diagnosed respectively in 2019 with 38.5% (25 out of 65 cases with a history of tuberculosis), in 2014 with 26.7% (63 out of 236 cases with a history of tuberculosis) and 20.8% (58 people out of 279 cases with a history of tuberculosis) in 2018.
Conclusion: Due to the significant difference in the prevalence of Covid 19 in patients who have not received the flu vaccine, it is necessary to inject the flu vaccine in these patients. Advice to quit smoking in these patients should be a priority. Because no independent study on Covid disease was observed in patients with tuberculosis, further studies in this field are necessary.