Qiagen welcomes new WHO tuberculosis screening guidelines

Qiagen has given its backing to new tuberculosis (TB) screening guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO has recommended a scaling-up of preventive screening and treatment among vulnerable groups in countries with both a high and low disease burden.

Within the guidelines was an acknowledgement that modern blood tests for latent TB infection, such as Qiagen's QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus, have clinical value.

This was welcomed by Qiagen, as it believes its interferon-gamma release assays are faster, less labour-intensive and more accurate than traditional tuberculin skin tests.

Dr Masae Kawamura, senior director of TB medical and scientific affairs at Qiagen, commented: "We applaud the World Health Organization's leadership in their drive to end this global epidemic, expanding screening and prevention to protect populations at risk from latent TB infection progressing to active, contagious disease."

She added that Qiagen is working closely with public health authorities around the world, as well as supporting efforts to simplify the latent tuberculosis infection screening cascade of care using diagnostic tests and risk-based testing to improve the safety of TB preventive treatment programmes.

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