TB bacteria, stained red in a sputum sample.
Scientists have discovered a signature of tuberculosis that can be detected in patients' blood, paving the way for an improved diagnostic test. Tuberculosis (TB) is curable and preventable, but according to the World Health Organization, 1.4 million people died from the disease in 2011, 95 per cent of them in lowand middle-income countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, where rates of TB are the highest in the world, current methods for diagnosis are unreliable, resulting in many people going untreated and spreading infection in their communities. The symptoms, such as persistent coughing and weight loss, are common to other diseases, and people can be infected with TB bacteria without becoming ill from it, which is known as latent TB infection. In the new study, researchers found that active TB can be distinguished from latent TB and other diseases by looking at which genes are switched on in people with suspected disease. When genes are switched on, the genetic code is copied onto molecules called RNA, which can be detected in blood. The current study, published in PLOS Medicine , used sophisticated, expensive technologies to reveal the RNA signature, but the researchers hope to use new technologies to develop a simple, low-cost test.
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