Most of the nine million people who fall ill with tuberculosis each year lack access to adequate testing and diagnosis, complicating efforts to stop its spread, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said. The United Nations agency said big investments were needed to develop diagnostics in low and middle income countries, where three-quarters of screenings take place for the respiratory system disease which claims 1.7 million lives a year.
“The world urgently needs new, safe and affordable diagnostics to simplify case detection, Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO’s Stop TB Department, said in a statement.
“Most of the world’s tuberculosis patients have access only to conventional microscopy which requires repeated testing, may miss half the cases, and which works especially poorly for HIV co-infected patients,” he added.