"October 2013: A snapshot of the response to multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Myanmar, a country seriously affected by this global threat. Can new diagnostic technology help make a difference? Featuring photos by renowned Asia photographer Gerhard Jörén...Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in Myanmar: ...Diagnosing drug-resistant TB: Why it matters... Until 2009, testing for the deadly strain of drug-resistant TB was done in just one laboratory in Myanmar, a country of over 50 million people. The only method available was over 100 years old and could take months to provide an accurate result. TB bacteria are spread through droplets in the air, so it is essential to get patients on treatment quickly before they can infect others. In Myanmar, around 180 000 people are thought to develop active TB each year. Just how many of these TB cases are resistant to the most important anti-TB drugs is hard to estimate, but close to 9000 people are diagnosed with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) every year. Like normal TB, MDR-TB is spread from person-to-person. But while drug-sensitive TB can be cured with a six-month course of antibiotics, MDR-TB requires 24 months of highly toxic and costly medicines and injections. Myanmar now has access to high-tech diagnostic machinery that can revolutionize the response to drug-resistant TB. The new reality is impressive. State-of-the-art TB labs lie on the outskirts of dusty urban centres. In these carefully contained environments, lab workers use molecular approaches to detect drug-resistant TB bacteria, extracting bacterial DNA from sputum samples. Going a step further, Myanmar was recently chosen by the World Health Organization to launch a global roll-out of a new and advanced TB diagnostic machine known as GeneXpert (pictured right), which can provide a result for MDR-TB diagnosis in just 90 minutes. These compact devices are now being installed in labs and TB centres throughout the country..."