SeeTB - A New TB Diagnosing Tool - UPSC Current Affairs

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SeeTB is a new device to diagnose Tuberculosis. It is developed by a research team from Jamia Hamdard University in New Delhi.

India is the leading country in tuberculosis deaths. It is a great burden on our healthcare system.
While the World Health Organisation aimed to eliminate TB by 2035, India wanted to do this by 2025.
In order to achieve the target, diagnosing the disease is the key.
The research team led by Dr. Sayed E. Hasnain has thus developed this small device.
SeeTB can be attracted to a simple optical microscope to convert it into a fluorescence microscope. This enables proper TB diagnosis at the point-of-care.
The device is battery operated and can quickly identify the bacteria.
To aid in quicker detection, the team also developed a clearing reagent called CLR that thins the sputum and enhances bacteria detection.
Currently, using a fluorescence microscope requires infrastructure, an air-conditioned room, trained professionals and is possible only in tertiary health care centres.
With the new device, a simple microscope can be converted into a fluorescence microscope.
This is a cost-effective alternative for a country like India.
And the device can be used in the Primary Health Centres at the village level and diagnosis of the disease.
Once detected, treatment can be started immediately.

The researches tested the device on more than 300 suspected pulmonary TB patients and it showed higher sensitivity than the fluorescence microscope.
While the fluorescence microscopy showed 63.38% sensitivity, SeeTB showed 76.05% sensitivity.
Also, the new device when tested against GeneXpert, diagnosis tool that looks for DNA markers of TB bacteria, the new device showed improved sensitivity.
While GeneXpert took two hours to find the bacteria, SeeTB took only 30 mins.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is planning to validate the CLR-SeeTB on a large-scale in its primary health research units across India.