[Indices of tuberculosis and nonspecific respiratory diseases a contribution to the surveillance of these diseases (author's transl)].

The epidemiology of tuberculosis and nonspecific respiratory diseases in GDR is reviewed. For tuberculosis an exact survey on its development in the course of the last 30 years is possible by reason of compulsory registration. The program of tuberculosis control has been pushed on consequently from the very beginning; all indices of tuberculosis epidemiology (annual infection rate, incidence and prevalence of morbidity, mortality) have favourably developed. Till 1982 tuberculosis is expected to be eliminated as a special problem of public health in GDR. The assessment and statistic evaluation of the nonspecific respiratory diseases is much more difficult. There is no compulsory registration or notification; acute respiratory diseases are very common; the chronic pulmonary diseases clinically and prognostically important are insufficiently defined and, therefore, patients can be delimited only badly from the by far greater number of persons with chronic cough and sputum defined on the base of epidemiological aspects. The informative significance of secondary statistics (temporary disabelement, dismissals from hospital, invalidity- social parameters) is analyzed regarding their value for an evaluation of these diseases. Acute respiratory diseases have serious consequences on the sickness absence rate due to the percentage of case and duration of absenteeism (20--35% of all cases) of the considerable portion of hospital dismissals. In periods of epidemics disablement is still by far higher.