Many people think tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient scourge that has already been defeated, yet in reality it remains the world’s leading infectious killer despite being curable. Scientific advances mean ending TB is more achievable than ever, but too many people with TB are still missed.
An uncomfortable and mostly unspoken reason for this is that active case-finding — long appreciated as the best way to eliminate TB — has long been considered too hard and too expensive for people in high-transmission, lower income settings. On the back of technological advances, this can change.
Current approaches rely heavily on people presenting to health facilities and being able to cough up a sputum sample for testing. In practice, many people with TB have few or no symptoms, or face barriers to accessing care. As a…