Award Winning Tuberculosis Test

In developed countries, tuberculosis (TB) is often taken for granted, but in fact it is the world’s leading curable infectious killer, claiming more then 1.7 million lives world-wide each year. One of the major problems is our inability to cheaply and quickly diagnose TB.
Now things are looking a little bit brighter with a new inexpensive and rapid test for TB, which has won first place in the Best Innovation to Improve Global Healthcare category of the Medical Futures Innovation Awards.
The test, known as MODS (Microscopic Observation Drug Susceptible Assay) is able to confirm the presence of TB from sputum samples in one week on average, taking one third to one quarter of the time of a standard TB test. At the same time, the new test is able to spot if the TB is drug resistant, which is five to ten times faster than existing tests. The test costs $2 to perform compared with around $30 to $40 for a standard test.
Read more at Imperial College London…
Find out more about Medical Futures Innovation Awards…
Learn more about TB and help defeat it at Stop TB Partnership…