Relationship of ARTI to incidence and prevalence of tuberculosis in a district of south India.
OBJECTIVE
To validate the currently used empirical relationship between annual risk of tuberculous infection (ARTI) and incidence and prevalence of smear-positive cases.


METHODS
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.


CONCLUSIONS
The currently used empirical relationship between ARTI and incidence can be used by programme managers as an effective monitoring tool.
Gopi
P G
PG
Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai, India.
Subramani
R
R
Santha
T
T
Kumaran
P P
PP
Kumaraswami
V
V
Narayanan
P R
PR
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology*