Diagnostics for tuberculosis
Global demand and market potential
Summary
A public health perspective...
Every year there are 8.8 million new active TB cases and nearly 2 million TB deaths worldwide – 5,000 every day – mostly in the poorest communities of the developing world. One third of the world’s population has latent TB which may later develop into an active form of the disease. TB has also become the leading cause of death among people with HIV. Multidrug-resistance is also a growing problem. A key challenge for the public health community is to be able to effectively diagnose patients so that valuable resources and medicines are not wasted on misdiagnosis and repeat treatments.