ABSTRACT
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. 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. 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]. 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.
ABSTRACT
Cigarettes smoking is a risk factor for tuberculosis [TB]. Associations between smoking and TB disease have been reported, but there are few reports on the influence of smoking on the sputum smear and culture conversion time. This study surveyed the possible association between smoking and sputum smear conversion time among new smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients, Between May 2005 and December 2006, we evaluated smokers and non-smokers patients with pulmonary TB referred to Zahedan Tuberculosis Center [Southeastern Iran]. Patients were not immunosuppressed or infected by human immunodeficiency virus [HIV]. Drug resistant cases were also excluded. A total of 200 TB patients, including 100 smokers, were evaluated. There was a significant delay in sputum smear conversion time between smokers and non-smokers 2 [53% vs. 10%, respectively, p<0.001] and 3 months following the treatment [19% vs. 2%, respectively, p<0.001]. However, there was no significant difference in failure rate [a positive smear at the end of the 5[th] month of treatment] between two groups [95% vs. 97%]. Our results revealed that smoking is significantly associated with a delay in sputum smear conversion time, hence, pulmonary TB cases must be strongly encouraged to cease smoking