Appropriate treatment of smear-positive cases can render most of them noninfectious rapidly, generally within two weeks. Generally, infectivity decreases many fold in the first 2 days in most individuals on standard short course chemotherapy. Therefore, the most effective intervention for reducing infectiousness is treatment of the case, and institution of a mechanism which will guarantee provision of the medications, . the patient will be on DOT. Under these circumstances, it is perfectly reasonable to treat most patients as an outpatient with a plan to ensure treatment completion
