Undetected tuberculosis is a threat – cheap reliable diagnosis needed

It concludes that TB is the most important infectious disease in China. Millions of people from Asia, South America and Africa are carriers of latent TB infections.

The threat of TB outbreaks even in Europe and America costs countries 100s of millions of Euros to control every year. Yet the immediate, solvable challenge in TB is simply to diagnose the disease quickly and simply with robust, fully-tested kits.

The majority of TB patients are still diagnosed using the tools of the Victorian era – Tuberculin skin tests, sputum smears and a microscope. But the Tuberculin test is unspecific and the smear microscopy insensitive, and in rural areas in developing countries even a microscope is not always available.

Cheap, simple but more accurate techniques are needed, that can be used in primary health care settings in the developing world.TB diagnostics development needs serious investment, and ‘useless’ tests already on the market need independent testing and effective regulation. Both are direct challenges to policy-makers

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors