Improving tuberculosis case detection rate with a lay informant questionnaire: an experience from the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

Problem: In many countries, the tuberculosis (TB) annual case detection rate is below the target of 70%. In the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 2005, it did not exceed 55%

Approach: The DOTS strategy promotes passive case detection of TB. In order to increase the detection rate, we validated a questionnaire targeting lay informants at village level to notify patients with chronic cough and assessed the relevance for TB case-finding.