RIF RESISTANCE TB TESTING

Overview

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than one third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Lack of diagnostic capacity has been a crucial barrier preventing an effective response to the challenges of HIV-associated and drug resistant tuberculosis (TB), with only 7% of the estimated global burden of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and an even smaller fraction of XDR-TB cases being detected, the consequence of critical gaps in laboratory capacity for culture and drug susceptibility testing (DST). Therefore, the expanded capacity to diagnose TB and MDR-TB is a global priority for TB control. Care of patients with tuberculosis starts with a quality assured diagnosis, obtained by growing and identifying Mycobacterium tuberculosis from clinical specimens and conducting DST of the organism to confirm or exclude resistance. Research on new TB diagnostic tools has been accelerated over the last few years and the diagnostic pipeline has been growing rapidly as a result.