Tuberculosis remains a major healthcare burden in Thailand. One problem with tuberculosis management is inaccurate diagnosis due to insufficient sensitivity and specificity of the current routine diagnostic tests, including sputum-smear microscopy and chest radiography. In addition, because of the nature of the procedure, sputum collection in children requires extensive and costly procedures, such as anesthetic administration.

To address these challenges, the medical innovator team under Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, has proposed to develop a non-sputum-cased assay with high sensitivity and specificity in detecting tuberculosis, utilizing loop-mediated isothermal amplification technology coupled with chromatographic visualization on a lateral flow dipstick. MIDAS and MORU are working in collaboration to evaluate this novel technology in development to identify its value proposition and use case of this new tuberculosis test, as well as to examine the cost, clinical usefulness, and health gain of adopting the new test in Thailand.