1977 Volume 52 Issue 9 Pages 447-453
Under the recent declining trend of tuberculosis in Japan, the examination of family contacts of newly registered active tuberculosis patients is the most important procedure for tuberculosis case-finding.
The purpose of this study is to know to what extent the family contacts examination was performed at the time of registration of new cases at the health center and the results of these examinations.
2, 392 household members of 815 newly registered patients (Table 1, 2) at 12 health centers in Osaka prefecture during the period from January to June, 1976 were subjected to the study.
The examination was performed for 1303 persons (54.5%). According to the age group, the rates were 62.8%, 50.3% and 53.8% in infants, school-children and adults, respectively (Table 3a).
26 active cases (2% to the total number examined) were discovered. Among 212 children aged 0-14 years and receiving tuberculin testing, 62 (29.2%) were positive and 22 were regarded as primary infection and chemoprophylaxis with INH was given (Table 3a) Out of 150 nonreactors BCG vaccination was performed to 131 (87.3%) (Table 3a).
Observing by the bacteriological status of source cases, the detection rate of new cases was higher among contacts of bacilli positive (smear and/or culture) patients as compered with bacilli negative patients (Table 3 b, c, d) (Fig. la).
The detection rate of new cases was higher among infants and contacts with source cases of types II, III and Pl (Fig. lb, c).
As the examination rate of family contacts was as low as about 50% in this survey, the number of patients to be discovered will be doubled if the examination is thoroughly carried out.
The priority of contacts examination should be focussed to intimate contacts of bacilli positive patients and contacts of primary infected children.
