Tuberculosis laboratory

The Tuberculosis laboratory, established in June 2001, has recently been renovated into a complete P3 facility. The laboratory is equipped with adequate instruments for conducting rapid culture using mycobacteria growth indicator tube and conventional culture and susceptibility testing, PCR-based deletion analysis for identification of Mycobacterium spp., spoligotyping, mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units typing, rapid immunological diagnostic test of pulmonary tuberculosis, laboratory diagnosis of paediatric tuberculosis, using gastric aspirate.

The laboratory collaborates with the Clinical Sciences Division and Public Health Sciences Division for research relating to hospital and community-based tuberculosis studies. It is jointly working with the National TB Reference Laboratory of the National TB Control Programme and National Institute of Diseases of Chest and Hospital, Dhaka, for routinely doing Lowenstein-Jensen medium-based conventional culture and susceptibility testing of M. tuberculosis isolated from sputa samples from TB patients.

Senior staff members are also associated with the national programme for training laboratory technicians and assessment of laboratories of NGOs working with the National TB Control Programme.