There is very little research on the ideal time to screen contacts of TB patients on treatment in a resource-limited setting
there is no need to test for contacts to be tested in resource limited area as one can give directly prophylactic drug.moreover the exposed contacts will not get disease that too smear positive and one is not going to wait for his or her smear to become positive.
All contacts of smear positive index cases must be screened as early as possible, even if they are asymptomatic. We have found that as many as 3% contacts may be asymptomatic open cases (means excreting the mycobacteria in their sputum but without symptoms)
The ideal time for contact screening of smear positive tuberculosis patients is as early as possible. I fully agree with Dr. Sarman Singh.
I am sorry we are talking of resource constraint area.& not ideal situations.
Close contacts should be screened immediately and 3 rd month .6 th month and one year.
Thanks for all your replies.
There is some amount of evidence that contact tracing could help in early identification and reduced burden in the long term, especially in high burden states. On the other hand the feasibility of screening in a resource limited setting is a point to be concerned about. However in a vertical programme of DOTS it is possible for the contacts to under diagnostics wherever possible. I thank you all Shashi Khare Mam, Joyce Felicia Vaghela Mam, Sarman Singh Sir, Jamunanantha Sivanathan Sir for answering and discussing with me. I would like to run this further. Please do provide as many inputs as possible. Personally we have had issues wherein a contact gets screened with a Non-TB result ( X-ray, Verbal screening, GeneXpert, smear) is subsequently diagnosed to have TB. Jamunanantha Sivananthan Sir, I wanted to know if there is any evidence for the 0-3-6-12 screening protocol. Thanks a lot
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Medicine
- Epidemiology