[The strategy of tuberculosis control in East Germany after 1982]

100 years after ROBERT KOCH'S detection of the tubercle bacillus the tuberculosis situation in GDR has so improved due to the progress in tuberculosis control, systematic activities in prevention, casefinding, and care and due to the comprehensive social measures that tuberculosis cannot be any more regarded as a "Volkskrankheit". The reduction of the annual infection rate to less than 0.1%, the decrease of infectious tuberculosis to less than 5/100,000 inhabitants, the shortening of the periods of chemotherapy and the further regression of relapses has made it possible to rationalize tuberculosis control by giving up indiscriminate mass x-ray examinations of the whole population in favour of the supervision of endangered person groups, by reducing the extent of risk groups according to stricter criteria, by making shorter the follow-up of the several forms of tuberculosis. Primary health care services have to be involved still more into tuberculosis control, especially in casefinding and outpatient treatment.