[Nationwide random survey on the epidemiology of pulmonary tuberculosis in China].

The second nationwide random survey for the epidemiology of pulmonary tuberculosis was carried out in 1984/1985 in China. A total of 1,176,570 subjects were examined. Based on the tuberculin positive rate, the estimation of annual risk of infection was 0.60% in 1984, the annual decline rate of ARI was 6.3% as comparing between the data in 1979 and 1984. The prevalence of smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis was 156/100,000, and its annual reduction rate was 3.2% since 1979. The prevalence of active pulmonary tuberculosis was 550/100,000, and its decrease rate per year was 4.7% since 1979. It is estimated, there are 5,700,000 active pulmonary tuberculosis patients and over 1,620,000 of them being smear-positive cases in China.