Relationship of ARTI to incidence and prevalence of tuberculosis in a district of south India.

Gopi, P.G.; Subramani, R.; Santha, T.; Kumaran, P.P.; Kumaraswami, V.; Narayanan, P.R.

International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease; 2006; 10; 115-117.

Summary: Objective: To validate the currently used empirical relationship between annual risk of tuberculous infection (ARTI) and incidence and prevalence of smear-positive cases.

Setting: Two disease surveys to estimate the prevalence and incidence of tuberculosis (TB) among adults in Tiruvallur district, south India, and a tuberculin survey to estimate the ARTI among children.

Results: The incidence of TB was estimated to be 82 and prevalence 210 per 100 000 population and ARTI 1.6%. We estimated that 1% ARTI corresponded to 51 new and 131 prevalent cases.

Conclusion: The currently used empirical relationship between ARTI and incidence can be used by programme managers as an effective monitoring tool.

Keywords: survey; incidence; prevalence; ARTI

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