India, April 15 -- Thiruvananthapuram-basedSree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) has developed a new low-cost AG Chitra Tuberculosis kitfor the rapid detection of pulmonary tuberculosis at an early stage. The product was recently launched by DrVK Saraswat, Member Science, NITI Aayog.

The method is similar to current DNA-based diagnostic methods like CB-NAAT and can be used with any qPCR machine. With a large infrastructure of qPCR machines already available in the country after the COVID-19 pandemic, this facility can be converted for screening large populations for Tuberculosis.

Up to 96 samples can be tested simultaneously, with the entire testing process taking approximately 1 hour from the sampl...