The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday said the rapid molecular diagnostic tool will be available over the next four years in more than a dozen countries.
Currently, standard tests take up to three months, the main reason why only 2 percent of MDR-TB cases worldwide are diagnosed and treated appropriately. With the new test, diagnosis and treatment of MDR-TB is expected to increase to 15 percent or more within four years.
The test costs $5 but an additional $15 has to be spent on lab equipment and staff salaries, bringing the total cost to $20 compared with up to $34 for older methods, a spokesman for WHO said. Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Congo are expected to begin using the test by the end of the year.
Currently, the tests are only used in research settings, but soon nearly 16 countries with a significant MDR-TB problem will become equipped for it. One country, Lesotho, is already equipped to start using these tests.
Patients suffering from MDR-TB respond poorly to standard treatment because of resistance to the first-line drugs isoniazid and rifampicin. They must switch to more potent and expensive medicines. Detection can quickly improve the chances a patient will survive and lowers the risk that the disease mutates further into the extensively drug-resistant form of TB.
More than 9 million people around the world fall sick with tuberculosis every year. Of those, about 500,000 get MDR-TB.
