TIRUCHY: An advanced laboratory to test samples for drug resistant tuberculosis is being set up at the KAPV government medical college. The lab will help in detecting if a patient is resistant to a particular drug used for treatment. There are 1967 TB patients in the district currently, according to Health department. Of this, 85 patients have drug resistant TB.
The lab is set up at `1.2 crore under the National Health mission of the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program (NTEP), and can handle samples from central districts. Earlier, samples had to be sent to Chennai or Madurai.
The new equipment, called Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT), can test up to 960 samples at a time. While the earlier solid culture machines would take 4-6 weeks to give the culture results, this machine will give the result in 10 days. Liquid culture test is the gold standard in TB testing, said Dr Dr K Lakshmi, HOD of the microbiology department.The new equipment will be extremely helpful in detecting drug resistance in pediatric and high risk patients.