RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Number of tuberculosis (TB) cases reported by primary care physicians (PCPs) in India: Results of a 1-day point prevalence study in 880 urban cities and towns in India JF European Respiratory Journal JO Eur Respir J FD European Respiratory Society SP P2849 VO 42 IS Suppl 57 A1 Komalkirti Apte A1 Monica Barne A1 Sapna Madas A1 Jaideep Gogtay A1 Sushmeeta Chhowwala A1 Nadar Maharajan A1 Sundeep Salvi YR 2013 UL http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P2849.abstract AB The burden of multi drug resistant (MDR) TB is increasing in India. Previous studies show that PCPs are poorly versed with standard TB chemotherapeutic regimens. This may be a major factor for the growing prevalence of MDR-TB (Udwadia, Plos One 2010). We aimed to study the prevalence of PCP reported prevalence of TB in India. Methods: 13,225 general practitioners (GPs), general physicians (GenPs) and paediatricians (Ps) from 880 urban cities and towns were randomly selected and invited to participate in a 1-day point prevalence study. All doctors completed a questionnaire based on the ICD-10 classification. They captured age, gender and diagnosis of all patients who visited them on the study day. Clean data was entered in Epi-Info software. Simple descriptive analysis was performed. Results: 7400 physicians (60.6% GPs, 20.8% GenPs, 18.8% Ps) consented and provided clean data of 204,912 patients. Among these, 3719 were reported to have TB. 55.5%, 30.7% and 13.8% of these were seen by GPs, GenPs and Ps respectively. 54% of the GPs were trained in alternative/ complementary forms of medicine (Alt. Med.) & 46% in modern medicine. 65.8% of TB cases were seen in private (pvt) clinics, 2.7% in pvt hospitals and 12.5% in government hospitals. 67.7% of reported TB cases were between the ages of 18-60 yrs. Conclusion: PCPs from pvt clinics see substantially large numbers of TB cases in India (estimated 700,000 TB cases/day). GPs (majority trained in Alt. Med.) see over 50% of these patients. These observations mandate development of appropriate health care strategies to restrict the increasing prevalence of MDR TB.