India will soon have a cheaper and easier way of detecting the tuberculosis (TB) germ. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has developed a new kit that could detect latent and active tuberculosis directly from the sputum samples.
The ICMR has filed a patent for the new technology and has invited companies interested in commercialising the kit. The diagnostic “luciferase reporter phage assay kit” for the detection of mycobacterium tuberculosis, say experts, is a “very promising candidate for drug susceptibility testing and diagnosing M.tuberculosis more rapidly as the assay allow detection of viable M.tuberculosis in clinical samples”.
According to ICMR experts, the kit is useful as an effective tool for quick diagnosis of TB. “It is used as an alternative to antibiotics to control the overgrowth of normal flora in processed sputum samples.”
Experts say that the new technology has a potential to diagnose actively growing tubercle bacilli present in sputum samples. “The assay is more rapid and sensitive to diagnose tuberculosis as compared to existing methods and can be effectively used in detection of mycobacterium tuberculosis in wide range of clinical samples.”
According to the experts, it is the only available growth based method to diagnose presence of latent cells of tubercle bacilli. “The assay is quick, very simple and economically viable.”
Public health expert R.P. Vashisth said it is a major breakthrough as the existing technology takes time and the rapid tests are expensive. “Since it is an indigenous technology, it will be cheaper,” he said.
The cheaper tests, sputum smear microscopy (SSM), according to Dr Vashist, are a lot more time-consuming.
“In tests where the sputum is directly tested microscopically. However, sometimes it proves to be a damp squib,” he said.