Status of bacillary tuberculosis cases identified in a community survey under different control programmes.

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

International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease; 2006; 10; 466-468.

Summary: We report the status of bacillary tuberculosis (TB) cases identified in community surveys undertaken at 2.5-year intervals. We observed three cohort periods to represent the different TB control programmes, namely 12–18 months of treatment (pre-short-course chemotherapy [pre-SCC]), 6–8 months SCC and DOTS in the area. There was a significant reduction in deaths from 23% to 17%, and an increase in the proportion of cases negative by smear and/or culture for Mycobacterium tuberculosis , from 54% to 58% in the pre-SCC and SCC cohorts to 80% in the DOTS cohort. These findings suggest that the DOTS strategy could have a significant influence on TB epidemiology.

Keywords: status of bacillary TB cases; community survey

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