SIGNIFICANCE OF ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS OF DRUG RESISTANT TUBERCULOSIS- PAKISTAN AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Drug resistant Tuberculosis (DR-TB) is becoming a serious public health problem globally due to its critical consequences in terms of mortality and morbidity. In developing countries such as Pakistan, DR-TB is relatively more prevalent amongst the migrants, females and children usually in rural areas who are poverty struck, illiteracy and are faced with numerous socioeconomic constraints.
Most of the high burden countries are still following the conventional diagnostic procedures which rely on culture and drug susceptibility testing, which is a slow and cumbersome process. The alarming rise in DR-TB has triggered worldwide research in the field of DR-TB diagnostics. In 2010, WHO endorses a new, fully automated diagnostic molecular test (Xpert MTB/RIF) for DR-TB, which has reduced the time period of diagnosis from 2- 3 months to less than two hours.
WHO strongly recommends Xpert MTB/RIF as the initial diagnostic test for DR-TB, but at this time it cannot be used as standalone procedure in a resource poor country such as Pakistan, but rather an additional technique to the already existing conventional procedures.