[The monitoring of the drug resistance of the causative agent of tuberculosis in Russia in 1979-1998].

: The Russian 1979-1998 annual reports of the centralized microbiology laboratories of the tuberculosis controlling service were used to examine the pattern and trends of formation of drug-resistance in the tuberculosis pathogen. The data on over 1.2 million cases of drug resistance to 7 antituberculous drugs were pooled. The analysis indicated that drug resistance had increased in two steps in the past 2 decades. The maximum levels of the drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to some drugs were limited (7.8 and 37.2%), which are not greater those as indicated by the international statistics.