Abstract

Tuberculosis is one of the top ten global causes of mortalities and poses a particularly acute threat to developing countries like India. Conventional TB diagnostic tests – including sputum smear microscopy for ZN or AO staining, chest X ray and culture on solid LJ media, suffers from either low sensitivity or low specificity or is slow. Global TB control efforts therefore had been severely hampered by the lack of diagnostic tests that were accurate, simple to use and could be applied to point of care. This has been further compounded by a widespread inability to test for drug resistance [1].