A Nice Sunday Dividend, From COVID Testing -- We Now Can Isolate What A Contagious TB Patient's Results Look Like: UK Bio-Science!

TB remains the most lethal killer -- as bacteria go -- world-wide (close to two million cases; over one million deaths, per year). This is largely due to people (almost always unaware that they harbor the bacteria, and are contagious) coughing on or otherwise leaving behind "deposits" on other humans -- or surfaces touched by them. So, it is a vast burden disease -- one that might greatly be reduced, with a cheap, fast, in-field diagnostic test.

Since we learned so much from COVID-19 swab-testing, it makes sense to isolate the "signature" proteins thought unique to TB, and swab for them. TB spreads through inhaling tiny droplets from coughs or sneezes of infected people -- and, while it mostly affects the lungs, it can devastate any part of the body. . . so, at the UK's Univ. of Southampton, Dr. Diana Garay-Baquero (in a collab with the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru) have done. . . just that. Here's the latest:

. . .Academics leading the investigation studied proteins found in the blood of people with active TB in Africa and South America.

They compared the biomarkers to those found in healthy people and patients with lung infections, identifying 118 proteins that differed significantly between the groups.

The experts then narrowed these down to the six proteins that, they said, can be used to distinguish contagious patients with TB from people in good health or with lung conditions.

The findings are a roadmap to developing a TB test that is as simple as the lateral flows used during Covid, said study co-director Dr. Diana Garay-Baquero, also from Southampton. . . .

The WHO, and Doctors Without Borders -- as well as US, UK and EU government funders should get behind making these test kits en mass, at very very low end-user prices/costs. They could save over 1.5 million people a year, on a global basis.

Onward, smiling -- my brackets improved, due to Marquette's win -- even as I am a lil' sad that the Buffs went out. They played very well -- just not enough. Marquette looks like a Final Four team now.

नमस्ते