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WHO seeks ban on TB blood tests
WHO warns against the use of inaccurate blood tests for active tuberculosis
The World Health Organisation (WHO) called for an immediate ban on the use of blood tests to detect active tuberculosis, saying they produced wrong results and left millions of lives at risk. In unusually frank terms, the U.N. agency suggested that mainly Western test-kit manufacturers misled their customers in developing countries with unfounded claims about their worth and used "perverse financial incentives" to boost sales. A year-long rigorous analysis by its own and independent health experts uncovered "overwhelming evidence....that the blood tests produced an unacceptable level of wrong results," a statement from the WHO said. In at least 50 percent of cases, the tests — only used in developing countries and mainly in the private sector — found sick people to be TB-free and healthy people to have the disease, the agency's Mario Raviglione told a news conference. "This means that tens of thousands of people with TB get no treatment, so they are highly likely to infect many, many others," he said. "And a similar number of healthy people are given useless treatment." The tests, which have no regulatory approval anywhere and are not used in richer nations, "must be stopped immediately and everywhere," Raviglione said.
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