Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest diseases on the face of the earth, affecting approximately 9.4 million people each year and causing the death of an estimated 1.8 million. Increasingly drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are also making an appearance, causing growing concerns among scientists and researchers.

Tuberculosis testing is done by an old-fashioned and time-consuming ‘smear test’ which was discovered over 125 years ago. This test for discovering tuberculosis takes quite a few days to produce results, which are also not always accurate. Researchers have been trying hard to come up with some other form of TB testing which could help in discovering tuberculosis more quickly.

A study was recently undertaken by Dr. Catherina C. Boehmer of the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics in Geneva and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to test the speed, accuracy and sensitivity of the new molecular test for tuberculosis created by Cepheid Inc. of Sunnyvale, California.

Samples of 1,730 patients with suspected tuberculosis and drug-resistant strains of TB from Peru, Azerbaijan, South Africa and India were taken and subject to the new test as well as the usual form of testing. It was discovered that the new tuberculosis test successfully identified 98 percent of all cases, including the samples resistant to antibiotic rifampin, one of the most common treatments.

The major advantage of this new molecular test for tuberculosis is that it produces the result within a record time of two hours. Not only is time a factor, the test can easily be administered by personnel with limited training. As such, this new test is all set to revolutionize the tuberculosis analysis scenario across the world, what with the WHO (World Health Organisation) all set to take a call on its implementation in all its member countries by September-end.