World Tuberculosis Day 2025 — Understanding TB PCR Test

TB PCR test rapidly detects TB bacteria with high accuracy, enabling early treatment and reducing transmission, especially for drug-resistant cases. Learn more about it on World Tuberculosis Day.

World Tuberculosis Day 2025

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{By: Dr. Kinjal Modi}

To help achieve a tuberculosis-free India by 2025, the nation has recently undertaken an elaborate initiative, the 100-Day TB Challenge. This campaign, which started in late 2024, covers hundreds of districts and seeks to improve TB case detection, minimise delays in diagnosis, and improve treatment outcomes, especially among the vulnerable populations. This represents a bold initiative that combines government strategies and grassroots mobilisation to locate and treat maximum number of TB patients possible in minimum time along the lines of the National TB Elimination Programme.

The Importance Of Timely TB Diagnosis And Treatment

Considering India approximately contributes to 27% of global TB cases, timely diagnosis becomes a necessity. Timely detection and treatment of TB not only averts severe health crises but also curbs infection transmission to other individuals. Underestimation or misdiagnosis does great injustice not only to the patients, but also inadvertently helps TB proliferate amongst the community. Providing patients quality, timely and precise detection improves their chances of post illness recovery whilst aiding in preventing aggressive outbreaks needing containment.

PCR Testing: A Game Changer In TB Diagnosis

In India health providers resort to a number of tests for tuberculosis diagnosis, but conventional methods while significant, do take a lot of time for result generation. Sometimes test results take days or weeks increasing the chances of transmission and causing treatment delays.

Rapid diagnostics tests like Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) for TB may be considered a game changer technique in the area of TB care in India. Patients samples are tested through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test, amplifies specific DNA sequences allowing the rapid detection of even small amounts of Mycobacterium tuberculosis - the germ that causes TB – in the clinical samples.

Enhancing TB Diagnosis With CBNAAT And PCR Testing

Many clinics go ahead and do this test with Cartridge-Based Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (CBNAAT). Combining CBNAAT with TB PCR testing has multiple benefits, such as:

• Faster Diagnosis For Early Treatment: Earlier treatment initiation narrows the gap from diagnosis to treatment. While previously waiting several days or weeks to confirm is no more, Sputum sample can be tested through PCR and TB can be confirmed within couple of hours much quicker than any past alternatives.
• Enhanced Sensitivity and Accurate Detection: Due to the fact that PCR is more sensitive than sputum microscopy, it is able to capture a greater number of cases, especially those with low bacterial colonies. Moreover, PCR is also capable of diagnosing cases of TB located outside the lungs, which greatly increases the accuracy of diagnosing tuberculosis overall.
• Enhanced Drug Resistance Detection: With TB PCR test, it is now possible to confirm resistance of bacteria to TB key drugs along with other tests. It is possible to detect genetic markers that render resistance to crucial antibiotic rifampicin. Thus, a decision can be made if a drug resistant TB strain is present or not. Thus, further tests can be designed to tailor treatment confirming tuberculosis strain resistance.

Affordability And Long-Term Benefits 

• In government hospitals and TB control programs, these tests are often free or highly subsidised under India’s National TB Elimination Program (NTEP).
• In private labs, the costs can be higher but still offer a faster and more reliable alternative to traditional tests.
• While PCR tests for TB are more expensive upfront, they save costs in the long run by reducing misdiagnoses, preventing severe TB cases, and improving overall treatment efficiency.

Rapid And Accurate Diagnosis For Effective Treatment

TB PCR tests greatly enhance the speed and accuracy of treatment by ensuring that patients get started on the correct treatment plan from the very beginning. Since, these tests are more accurate and faster than the traditional methods, they are now the recommended first step for diagnosing TB in India, which has many cases of multi-drug resistant TB. This allows faster intervention, which slows down the spread of resistant strains of TB.

With the evolution of portable, easy to use PCR testing devices, TB diagnosis can be made in the patient’s first visit itself and the treatment plan can be initiated as soon as the diagnosis is made. These systems do not require skilled manpower and elaborate infrastructure and are easily installed in resource limited settings. These offer a complete patient centric solution for vulnerable populations, enabling healthcare professionals to test, treat and cure in a short period of time, thereby help in controlling the TB burden in India.

The author, Dr. Kinjal Modi is a Consultant, Pulmonology at P.D. Hinduja Hospital & MRC, Khar.

[Disclaimer: The information provided in the article, including treatment suggestions shared by doctors, is intended for general informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.]