ICMR's luciferase reporter phage assay: A new diagnostic kit that detects both latent and active tuberculosis will soon be available in the market. The kit, developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research, is the most advanced of all TB diagnostic devices and provides the most accurate result in a shorter time

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad:  A new diagnostic kit that detects both latent and
active tuberculosis will soon be available in the market. The kit,
developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is the
most advanced of all TB diagnostic devices and provides the most
accurate result in a shorter time.

The ICMR has announced commercialization of the TB diagnostic kit and
invited medical companies for manufacture on largescale. The ICMR’s
luciferase reporter phage assay (LRPA) kit detects the TB bacterium,
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, directly from processed sputum samples.

According to an ICMR statement, the new diagnostic kit is a “very
promising candidate for drug susceptibility testing and diagnosing the
TB bacterium more rapidly as the assay allows detection of viable M
tuberculosis in clinical samples”. A large group of Indians carries
the TB bacterium without showing any external symptoms (latent TB).
India also has a high burden of tuberculosis and new strains of TB
resistant to a majority of drugs have been discovered in the country.

TB free certification has been made mandatory for Indians visiting the
UK for more than six months. The ICMR kit is expected to be economical
and accurate and thus reduces the number of false positive and false
negative reports. Moreover, it can be used as an alternative to
antibiotics to control the overgrowth of normal flora (bacteria) in
processed sputum samples. It is a promising technique to diagnose
actively growing tubercle bacilli present in sputum samples.

“The assay is more rapid and sensitive to diagnose tuberculosis as
compared to existing methods and can be effectively used in detection
of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in wide range of clinical samples. It is
the only available growth based method to diagnose presence of latent
cells of tubercle bacilli (TB),” the ICMR statement added.