Current Methods and Future of Tuberculosis (TB) Diagnosis

Abstract

Nearly, 2.1 billion people are supposed to be infected with a deadly disease of tuberculosis (TB) today. Besides this, there is an additional 8 million emerging TB cases every year, indicating a more serious threat. This catastrophic effect of tuberculosis is also accelerated by its deadly cooperation with HIV. Thus, quick and precise diagnosis is highly needed to fight against TB and TB-HIV/AIDS confection especially in developing nations like India. The review describes several already in use and novel diagnostic methods beside their advantages and limitations for establishing a standard TB treatment in resource limited areas. As per WHO policy decision, development of some novel methods have been made available at affordable prices for health care sector in TB endemic countries. The future looks encouraging with many new upcoming tools specifically molecular based diagnosis, next-generation-based technologies and many new tests which are approved by WHO for investment and adoption. But still the developments of new weapons for diagnosis are yet to realize its power in order to reach out the maximum patients possible. Many international and national workers and donors are synergistically working toward the development of diagnosis methods that can be easily installed and used in point-of-care (POC) settings.