The News – An institute in South Africa has developed a new system of diagnosing tuberculosis by looking at digital photos of a patient’s sputum and searching for the tuberculosis structural fingerprint. This system can diagnose in 24 hours and from tests performed seems to 10% better than conventional methods.The Benefits – An early diagnosis will help in starting the treatment earlier which can help reducing the impact. This is also cheaper compared to traditional systems for diagnosing tuberculosis since it uses low cost microscopy.
The Challenges – Since it works by analysing the structural fingerprint, it may not work with all types of tuberculosis. Also this system needs to be learning on a continuous basis to ensure that the accuracy of the analysis method is improved. It will be more beneficial if the analysis can help in the study of a better cure for tuberculosis.
Read more at - http://web.scidev.net/en/news/tb-diagnosis-boosted-by-faster-cheaper-test.html
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