Mumbaiites will now get a world-class facility for diagnosis of Tuberculosis, as Breach Candy Hospital has installed Mumbai's first fully automated tuberculosis culture diagnosis instrument BD BACTEC 960 MGIT a BD system. The instrument requires no human interference and so leaves no chances for human error.

Dr. Srikant Gharpure, Head, Lab Services, Breach Candy Hospital said, "Breach Candy Hospital has always been at the forefront of providing advanced healthcare facilities to the people of Mumbai. BD BACTEC 960 MGIT is a part of the same commitment and will prove to be an effective tool to fight a dreaded disease like Tuberculosis. As an alternative to traditional culture on solid media which takes 4-6 weeks for growth and 3 weeks for drug sensitivity, MGIT 960 TB culture system is a fully automated high capacity, fluorescence and non invasive instrument which reduces the time of detection & drug sensitivity to as low as 1 week. This is a very high throughput system which allows simultaneous testing of 960 samples in one go."

Dr. Anand Deshmukh, Consultant Microbiologist, Breach Candy Hospital, also confirms that the increasing incidence of Tuberculosis has made it essential for laboratories to quickly detect and identify mycobacterium from human clinical specimens. Culture of clinical specimens is the only reliable method of diagnosis that allows susceptibility testing of the isolated Mycobacteria against antituberculosis drugs, for the accurate treatment to be given to the patient. BACTEC 960 MGIT does not use any sharps at the time of testing procedure therefore it does not pose danger of needle prick injuries to the users of the instrument.