Indian health authorities have indicated that the Xpert test that detects tuberculosis and also helps in finding out if the patient is resistant to a key tuberculosis drug.

The authorities are planning to widely sue the Xpert test in India’s TB control programme. The Xpert test, which is endorsed by the World Health Organisation, is capable of detecting the disease in two hours and also helps doctors in determining if the patient is resistant to any drug.

The Government TB-control programme is currently using about 30 machines and will use another 40 within this year, according to the officials of the Union Health Ministry. The officials have said that that government is not looking to reply only on one type of test and several types of tests are being looked at.

The Government TB-control programme includes a mix of conventional tests (liquid and solid), line probe assays and the Xpert test. The government places primary healthcare centres, regular hospitals or large tertiary hospitals for tests, according to the government official.

The test kits would be available for the public sector at $10 per cartridge. Dr Madhukar Pai, Associate Professor (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics) with McGill University, Canada said that the review confirmed that effectiveness of the test.