Man with daughter on the motorcycle
TB Management

TB Risk Groups

Who is at risk for TB?

It is estimated that up to 10% of people infected with M. tuberculosis will develop active TB in their lifetime. About one-quarter of the world’s population has a TB infection. The vast majority have no signs or symptoms of TB disease and are not infectious, although they are at risk of developing active TB disease and becoming infectious.

The COVID-19 pandemic is negatively impacting TB testing services

International efforts have succeeded in slowing the COVID-19 pandemic, but responding to COVID-19 has also forced disruption of TB control programs around the globe. Such disruption has reversed a decade of progress against TB, with a recent report released by Stop TB suggesting the potential for an additional 1.4 million tuberculosis deaths by 2025, due to COVID-19-related disruption to TB prevention services (2).

Finding ways to integrate TB and COVID-19 care programs

Dr. Alistair Story, from London’s Find&Treat mobile health service discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the service and how the lessons learned through years of running the service has helped it to manage the additional burden of COVID-19.

QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus tubes
Improve TB screening with QFT-Plus
  • Single patient visit
  • Unaffected by BCG vaccination
  • >94% sensitivity
  • >97% specificity
  • Innovative CD8+ T cell technology
References:
  1. World Health Organization. (2020) WHO consolidated guidelines on tuberculosis: tuberculosis preventive treatment. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331170/9789240001503-eng.pdf
  2. Stop TB Partnership in collaboration with Imperial College, Avenir Health, Johns Hopkins University and USAID. The potential impact of the COVID-19 response on tuberculosis in high-burden countries: a modeling analysis.

QFT-Plus is an in vitro diagnostic aid for detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. QFT-Plus is an indirect test for M. tuberculosis infection (including disease) and is intended for use in conjunction with risk assessment, radiography, and other medical and diagnostic evaluations.