Comparison of cough of 2 and 3 weeks to improve detection of smear-positive tuberculosis cases among out-patients in India.

Abstract

The detection of smear-positive TB cases can be substantially improved by actively eliciting history of cough from all out-patients, and by changing the screening criterion for performing sputum microscopy among out-patients from cough > or =3 weeks to > or =2 weeks. Before implementing this change nationally, its programmatic feasibility should be assessed.