Tuberculosis is the cause for highest number of deaths worldwide due to an infectious disease. Despite the availability of potent anti-TB medication, the highly contagious infection continues to pose a major threat to global healthcare. Early detection and timely initiation of appropriate treatment is the most effective control strategy for TB.
Despite the wide spread deployment of Sputum smear microscopy as the front-line tool for diagnosing TB many patients go undiagnosed and remain carriers of the infection in the community.
While scale up of highly sensitive and specific molecular diagnostic tools could dramatically increase TB case detection and provide diagnosis of drug resistance, the decentralization of this technique has so far been limited due to dependency on complex and expensive infrastructure.
Truenat is a Real Time quantitative micro PCR platform that brings molecular testing right to the point of care, thereby enabling early and accurate diagnosis of TB and Rifampicin resistance at the first point of patient contact. This platform works as a combination of portable, fully automated, battery operated machines and room temperature stable RT PCR reagents. This can be deployed at peripheral laboratories with minimal infrastructure and minimally trained technicians to perform the MTB test and report results within 1 hour from sample collection. Truenat, a WHO endorsed test for diagnosis of Tuberculosis and Rifampicin resistance, is developed and manufactured by a Goa-based company - Molbio Diagnostics.