As per the ongoing research by the Haffkine Institute, Parel, which is one of the oldest biomedical research institutes in the country, soon Tuberculosis will be diagnosed within an hour. A senior official said that for the first time the Biotechnology Department of the government has tied with them for the research and a budget of Rs 90 lakh has also been sanctioned by the government.

“In order to reduce the time consumed, the medical research centre along with the biotechnology department have taken up the project to produce a diagnostic system which is more affordable and less time to consume,” added doctor. TB is a contagious disease, which usually attacks lungs of the people and also spreads to other parts of the body. As per statistics, every year more than a thousand people get diagnosed with TB across the state. A bacterium named as ‘Mycobacterium’ causes TB and due to its nature, it needs to be diagnosed early.

According to the news reported by FreePressJournal, Dr Nishigandha R Naik, Director of Haffkine Institute, said that looking at the current scenario, the method of diagnosing TB is time-consuming and is very costly due to which people have to wait for three to four weeks for the reports. “It is essential for early and faster diagnosis of TB since diagnosis done through lab analysis takes around three weeks and the Genexpert which provides fast diagnosis is costly due to which poor patients cannot afford it. Hence, we have started research work to produce something that provides more accurate data within time,” added Dr Naik.

The centre has named the process as ‘ASSURED’diagnosis. The research work is done in two phases out of which we are right now in the second phase which will be complete soon. “In the first phase, we did the research on patients with samples. Then in the second phase, samples have been collected from 15 TB patients. To complete the research, we need to collect samples from 100 patients. In our lab test, it has shown the positive result to identify TB bacteria among other organisms,” said Dr Naik.

In order to reduce the time consumed, the Institute’s medical research centre and the biotechnology department have taken up the project to produce a diagnostic system which is more affordable and less time-consuming. The Centre has named the process as ‘ASSURED’ diagnosis. The research work is done in two phases. The institute is right now in the second phase, which will be completed soon.