Advertisement
According to the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Masood Hameed, Pakistan is fourth globally when it comes to multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Recently the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases inaugurated their new diagnostic technology for the disease. This new technology has been introduced in collaboration with the National TB Control Programme that will assist in early detection of TB. It gives the result about bactericidal antibiotic Rifampin within two hours rather than six to eight weeks that it usually takes to find out whether the infection is resistant to the drug or not.
If a patient suffering from TB does not get right medical treatment then he is at risk of developing resistance to the drugs prescribed usually and ends up with MDR-TB. Furthermore, the situation gets out of hand when he remains untreated and spreads it on average to 10-15 other people within a year and the disease epidemic starts. Now, with this kind of a complication, proper treatment at the earliest becomes possible with this new diagnostic technology.
The only problem that might occur is that of inconsistent electricity supply, which is although not a problem at Ojha, but is an issue at other sites for the facility. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has said to help in the coming few months to set up the system. This new technology, GeneXpert System, is patented by a US-based lab automation company called Cepheid and costs around $35,000.
