ABSTRACT
As part of the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP), a quality control of the slides (search of acido-fast-bacilli in the sputa) of the Treatment and Diagnosis Centers (TDC) forming the National Laboratory Network was carried out in 1996. 60 TDC of the 165 TDC (36%) had been controlled according to the system of double reading of the smears. The global concordance of the results in the 60 TDC is satisfactory since it was of 94%. Reliability of smears positive was of 83%. For the negative smears reliability, 14% of the TDC had a low or insufficient level. A good quality of smears was observed in 40% of the centers. The TDC that had both positive and negative reliability at 100% were 23 (38%) of which 13 had good quality of smears. Those were especially found in Antananarivo, Toliara, Fianarantsoa and Mahajanga.
