Tuberculosis continues to kill two Indians every three minutes and nearly 1,000 every day, yet the task of accurately diagnosing the disease gets relatively low priority. This often leads to delayed treatment, perpetuating the spread of TB and drug-resistant TB.

Tuberculosis or TB remains a significant health problem in Asia and Africa causing extensive human suffering and loss of life. In recent years the causative bacteria has become resistant to available anti-TB drugs. The resistance can be of various levels, such as MDR or multi-drug resistant TB, when the most commonly used drugs rifampicin and isoniazid become ineffective. It becomes difficult to treat XDR or extensively drug resistant TB where the bacteria become resistant not only to these two drugs but also injectable and other second-line drugs.