Jakarta, April 21 -- Health Ministry and National Foods and Drugs Authority (BPOM) highlights the urgency of strengthening regulation and advancing domestic health product and innovation, such as Interferon-Gamma Release Assay (IGRA), to support tuberculosis (TB) elimination through early detection.

According to Health Ministry's data, Indonesia continues to face significant TB burden, with some 867,000 cases diagnosed over past year.

"If we could make IGRA test go down from Rp 1 million (US$58.32) to just Rp 50,000 (US$2.92), the impact on the state budget would be tremendous," Deputy Health Ministry Benjamin Paulus Octavianus said here on Tuesday.

In addition to calling for more efficient health technologies, particularly in diagnost...