Intersecting epidemics Tuberculosis (TB) remains a considerable global public health concern, mainly affecting poor and vulnerable populations. Every year, more than 9 million people fall ill with this infectious disease, and close to 2 million die from it. Diabetes, a chronic metabolic disease that is i...
An antibody detection-based diagnostic test in a user-friendly format could potentially replace
microscopy and extend tuberculosis diagnosis to lower levels of health services. Dozens of commercial
serological tests for tuberculosis are being marketed in many parts of the world, despite previous systemat...
Conventional light microscopy of Ziehl-Neelsen-stained smears prepared directly from sputum specimens is the most widely available test for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in resource-limited settings. Ziehl-Neelsen microscopy is highly specific, but its sensitivity is variable (20–80%) and is significa...
Research over the past decade has resulted in the development of two commercial interferongamma release assays (IGRAs), based on the principle that the T-cells of individuals who have acquired TB infection respond to re-stimulation with Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens by secreting interferon...
Earlier and improved tuberculosis (TB) case detection - including smear-negative disease, often associated with HIV co-infection - as well as expanded capacity to diagnose multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are global priorities for TB control. Conventional laboratory methods are slow and cumberso...
