Evaluation of Active Tuberculosis Case Finding in Shirabad Region of Zahedan

Background : One third of world population is infected with TB germs. If untreated, each TB patient infects 15-20 people. Therefore, the rapid diagnosis of infectious TB patients is the basis to prevent from tuberculosis. Therefore, proper utilization of the methods of TB disease is very important. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of active intervention in high risk areas of Shirabad of Zahedan city.

Materials and Methods: In this study, two methods of house to house visit and face to face training were used to. All residents of above 6 of Shirabad, who were 55845 people, were examined for tuberculosis from mid-July to December 2008 (with emphasis on the detection of pulmonary TB). The evaluation was performed based on clinical symptoms (more than 2 weeks coughing), sputum smear and chest radiography. Data collected analyzed by the software SPSS-13.

Results: Infectious TB disease had a significant increase within 2 years (320% in 2007 and 500% in 2008 (p=0.001). The incidence was significant in different nations. It had significant increase in Iranian population (p=0.001) and significant decrease in non-Iranian population (p=0.001). Reduced delay in diagnosis of non-Iranian women made smear significantly positive (p=0.014).

Conclusion: The results showed that active intervention is effective in the discovery of infectious TB cases with 100% efficiency of passive TB screening. To treat patients effectively, efficient and effective DOTS strategy is the main underlying prerequisite for active intervention.