In a bid to fight the emerging multi-drug resistant tuberculosis(MDR-TB), healthcare experts have advocated the need for a collective move towards improved diagnostic mechanisms that help in accurate diagnosis of drug resistant strains of the disease.
The experts says inaccurate and delayed diagnosis continues to be a major challenge, which also perpetuates the spread of drug-resistant TB. They emphasized that adoption of liquid-based TB drug susceptibility testing on a larger scale is key to improve timely diagnosis of drug resistant TB.
"Inaccurate and delayed diagnosis of TB continues to be a challenge in both public and private sectors. In early stages when the drug resistance starts developing, a new crop of MDR bacteria erupts which cannot be detected by molecular methods but only by liquid culture methods and therefore, whenever there is a suspicion of MDR-TB the samples must be subjected to phenotypic second line drug susceptibility testing, using liquid culture systems," said Prof Sarman Singh, head of clinical microbiology and molecular medicine division at AIIMS.
His team’s worrying findings published in 2011 demonstrate that approximately 4.5 per cent of family members of a TB patient do not seek medical attention despite getting infected.
As per 2014 estimates, TB cases with MDR-TB range from two to three per cent in new cases and 11-19 per cent in re-treatment TB cases with the disease spreading rampantly.
TB treatment and control programs should focus on accurate and timely diagnosis, identification of clinically appropriate treatment regimens, patient monitoring and follow-up.
"We are privileged to work with AIIMS to advance the world of health by bringing appropriate technology solutions for TB diagnosis in India," said Varun Khanna, managing director, India & South Asia, Becton Dickinson and Company.
Over one third of TB cases in India are not accurately diagnosed, leading to rise in MDR/XDR cases of TB.
Becton Dickinson and Company (BD) is an American multi-billion-dollar medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagents.
WHO statistics for 2014 suggest an estimated incidence of 2.2 million cases of TB in India out of a global incidence of 9 million.
BW Reporters
The author is Senior Correspondent with BW Businessworld
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