Current innovations in medical laboratory diagnosis of Tuberculosis

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major global health problem, ranking as the second highest cause of death from an infectious disease globally, after the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Nigeria ranked first in Africa with burden of TB. Tuberculosis is a major public health problem in Nigeria with about 407,000 people infected. The World Health Organization estimates that 120,000 people developed TB in 2019, with 154,000 death of whom, 13% were HIV positive individuals. Among the incident cases, 56% were from the South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions and one quarter were from Africa. The African continent accounts for the highest rates of cases and deaths relative to population. Traditionally, tuberculosis is mostly being diagnosed by a combination of chest X-rays, the staining of sputum with special dyes followed by microscopy, the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in culture and the Mantoux test. The sputum smear microscopy is easy to do and is very cheap and combined with chest X-rays has been used for a long time by TB control agencies worldwide. However, the sputum smear microscopy (sputum AFB) test has some problems in HIV-positive patients and children also in patients with low bacterial load and in latent TB infections. TB continues to be a complex disease to diagnose and manage due to the chronicity of the disease, the nature of the host-pathogen relationship, and the resulting diversity in its clinical manifestations. Therefore, this review considers recent innovations in TB laboratory diagnosis in conventional (traditional), non- conventional (molecular), serological (immunological) methods and the latest methods of TB diagnosis.