The Ministry of Health’s TB division has accredited the Anantapur Rural Development Trust (RDT) Hospital’s laboratory at Bhattalapalli in Anantapur district to test multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB)samples. It is now the second such facility in the State.
The hospital had a negative pressure laboratory where line probe assay was performed using nucleic acid amplification test and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology for the detection of mutations associated with drug resistance, said district TB control officer Ravela Sudheer Babu.
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MDR-TB is caused by bacteria resistant to isoniazid and rifampin, first-line anti-TB medications, he said.
The only other accredited facility in the State was in Visakhapatnam, which had a backlog of 4,000 samples. Samples untested for a long duration give scope for their contamination, said Gerardo Alvarez-Uría, chief of the infectious diseases department at the hospital.
The National Research Institute, Chennai, and the TB Research Institute, New Delhi, inspected the hospital for six months. Tests performed at the genetic structure-level of TB bacteria could help detect the drug resistance status within two days, and accordingly second or third line of drugs could be administered to a patient, said Raghu Prakash Reddy, head of the laboratory.
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The mycobacteriology laboratory, opened on June 26, 2018, was partially funded by the General Insurance Corporation (Re) of India and designed according to the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) guidelines, he added.
Referred cases of MDR-TB samples from the six southern districts of Andhra Pradesh - Prakasam, Nellore, Chittoor, Kadapa, Kurnool and Anantapur - would now be sent to the centre, said Mr. Babu.
Moreover, the laboratory planned to enter into an agreement with the government for the supply of 70% of the reagents for the test to the laboratory by it.