People in poor countries who suffer from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) will get a faster diagnosis thanks to a new diagnostic test unveiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The new test will allow doctors in poor countries to find out within hours, instead of months, whether a patient suffers from MDR-TB.

According to Reuters, Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO’s Stop TB department said the molecular test developed by Hain Lifescience and Innogenetics represented a big breakthrough in the fight against tuberculosis, a contagious respiratory disease that kills 1.5 million people a year.

It is estimated only 2% of MDR-TB cases worldwide are being diagnosed and treated appropriately, BBC News noted.

Over the next four years, 16 countries – Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Moldova, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam – will begin using the new test method to diagnose MDR-TB.

A 1997 survey of 35 countries found the higher rates of MDR-TB were in the former USSR, the Baltic states, Argentina, India and China. It was associated with poor of failing national Tuberculosis Control programmes. The forms of TB that are resistant at least to isoniazid (INH) and rifampicin (RMP) can develop in the course of the treatment of fully sensitive TB and it develops as a consequence of patients missing doses or failing to complete a course of treatment.