Five districts in which short course chemotherapy (SCC) was introduced during 1987-88 (DTP-SCC) and an equal number of districts without an SCC programme (DTP-SR) but having comparable new sputum examinations performance (NSE) in 1986 were selected from the states of Gujarat and Tamilnadu. Data obtained by the monitoring cell of the National Tuberculosis Institute (NTI) for 15 consecutive quarters from the lst quarter of 1986 were analysed. It was possible to study operational variables: NSE, number of pulmonary patients diagnosed (TBP) and number of bacillary cases detected (BCASE). While the figures of first six quarters were used to represent pre SCC performance, those of the last six quarters depicted the post SCC scenario. However, the trend analysis has been done using the whole data.

The growth rates of NSE, TBP and BCASE were 14.1%, 1.7% and 13.0% respectively for DTP-SCC compared with 17.0%, 5.3% and 29% for DTP-SR. Both the DTCs and PHIs in DTP-SR showed negative growth in BCASE, inspite of their efforts as evidenced by increase in NSE and TBP, the introduction of SCC led to an increase in BCASE for both DTC and PHIs. While the PHIs in DTP-SCC showed increased efficiency in all the aspects (NSE 24.4%, TBP 19%, BCASE 16.7%), DTCs showed decreased activity in NSE ( -2.4) and TBP (-6.6%), indicating improvement at the periphery. Trend analysis corroborated the above findings.