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, researchers analyzed data from almost 17,000 people who took part in Taiwan's 2001 National Health Interview Survey and 'found that current smokers had a 2.73 times higher risk of active TB than non...

Background: Drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a growing concern worldwide. Rapid detection of resistance expedites appropriate intervention to control the disease. Several technologies have recently been reported to detect rifampicin resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly in sputum samples. These include phenotypic culture based methods, tests for gene mutations and tests based on bacteriophage replication. The aim of the present study was to assess the feasibility of implementing technology for rapid detection of rifampicin resistance in a high disease burden setting in Africa. Methods: Sputum specimens from re-treatment TB patients presenting to the Mulago hospital National TB Treatment Centre in Kampala, Uganda, were examined by conventional methods and simultaneously used in one of the four direct susceptibility tests, namely direct BACTEC 460, Etest, 'in-house' phage test, and INNO- Rif.TB. The reference method was the BACTEC 460 indirect culture drug susceptibility tes