Technology originally developed by OU scientists to search for life on Mars and to study the ingredients of a comet could soon be used as a major tool to manage TB pandemic.
There are nearly nine million new cases of tuberculosis reported each year, of which nearly two million will die. Ninety eight per cent of these deaths will happen in the developing world because the available tools to diagnosis the disease are inadequate.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a global public health emergency according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). TB results from infection by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It usually infects the lungs as it is transported by aerosols when people cough.
One-third of the 40 million people worldwide who are living with HIV/AIDS are co-infected with TB. The infection develops rapidly in patients that have a compromised immune system. The average life expectancy for these patients is as short as 54 days. Autopsy studies are consistently finding that TB it is being detected post-mortem and that in about half of these cases it was not diagnosed during life. TB is the most common cause of HIV+ related death in Africa
The WHO concedes that existing tools to diagnose TB are inadequate and there is a need for the development of innovative methods to help halt the pandemic.
Using technology originally developed at the OU for planetary exploration, the proposed research, led by Dr Geraint Morgan, aims to show how a mass spectrometer and a sample of sputum can produce a much faster, more sensitive and more accurate diagnosis for pulmonary tuberculosis.
With the support of the Wellcome Trust, clinical partners from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and software engineers at Cranfield University, the objective of the project is to develop and prove the capabilities of an affordable, portable, automatic device for use in developing countries – where resources are poor.
For more information contact Dr Geraint Morgan: g.h.morgan@open.ac.uk
Image: STOP TB projected onto Geneva’s 140 meter high “jet d’eau” fountain (one of the highest fountains in the world) with laser lights for the 60th World Health Assembly. Image courtesy of www.stoptb.org
