The Accessibility, Affordability, and Early Detection of Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) stands as the leading cause of death from an infectious agent worldwide, with a high fatality rate. It is primarily transmitted through the airborne Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) from an infected patient to a healthy individual. Annually, millions of people go undiagnosed for TB at an early stage and lose the opportunity for timely treatment, making early TB diagnosis a high priority. Prevalence surveys also have shown that many individuals with lab-confirmed TB disease lack symptoms and do not seek diagnosis or care. Moreover, delays in initiating treatment are commonly observed even after TB diagnosis, heightening the risk of disease transmission in the community. This research paper aims to address these challenges by analyzing the impact of various socioeconomic, policy, and healthcare factors on the accessibility of TB diagnosis. Furthermore, it aims to analyze current effective tuberculosis diagnosis techniques, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Despite the presence of promising new drugs in the clinical trial stage offering hope for patients with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) or very drug-resistant TB, the primary challenge remains the timely and species-specific detection of Tuberculosis. In addition to the detection of disease, identifying its drug resistance patterns and ensuring the availability of highly active short-course drug treatments are imperative, ideally lasting just a few weeks. This is essential to support the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global efforts to “END TB” by 2030, to reach 90% of people primarily through early diagnosis, innovative treatments, and vaccine development.