Key messages
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Diagnostics classify patients at one point in time, whereas biomarkers can provide prognostic information about future health status and can advance knowledge of disease pathogenesis.
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Qualified tuberculosis biomarkers are most urgently needed as predictors of reactivation and cure, and indicators of vaccine-induced protection. The biomarker most closely approaching qualification is 2-month culture conversion as a predictor of relapse risk.
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The tuberculosis diagnostics pipeline has rapidly grown, with development of several promising technologies.
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The existing tuberculosis diagnostics pipeline still does not have a simple, rapid, inexpensive point-of-care test. Accurate, rapid tests are also needed for smear-negative and childhood tuberculosis, as are tests for latent tuberculosis with increased predictive value for reactivation.
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Several diagnostics and diagnostic strategies have been endorsed by WHO and are being introduced into clinical use and national tuberculosis control programmes.
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Governments in all countries, especially industrialised countries, have to increase funding for tuberculosis research and control.