New training video on stool-based diagnosis of TB

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most common presenting illness and the leading cause of death among people living with HIV (PLHIV). Yet, many PLHIV with TB are never diagnosed, partly due to a lack of precise diagnostics tools suitable for this patient group.   

Sputum samples, which have been the foundation of TB diagnostics for decades, are often difficult to produce for PLHIV or other specific groups of patients, such as children.

The KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, an international center of expertise for TB control, has developed the Simple One-Step (SOS) stool processing method, a simple method to diagnose TB which uses stool as an alternative type of sample.

A training video on this method was recently developed and published on the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation’s website. The production of the video, which is available in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ukrainian), was supported by TB-CAPT and led by the project coordinator FIND, the global alliance for diagnostics.

In TB-CAPT, the video now forms part of the resources that will be used to train TB-CAPT clinical sites in the context of the TB-CAPT HIV trial.

Recruitment for this important study is to start in July 2022. All teams on the ground are eager to start enrolling patients and hopefully seeing the benefits of the proposed expanded testing strategy.