All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi is organising the 12-day short term training course "Asia Region Training Programme (ARTP) for MODS, NRA and CRI", from September 03-14, 2012 at TB Laboratory, AIIMS.

This training course has been designed to aware the application and  implementation of the NRA, MODS and CRI techniques for simple, rapid and inexpensive detection methods of M. tuberculosis in low resource laboratories/developing countries.

This course is being launched in association with the STOP TB Partnership New Diagnostic Working Group. The NDWG aims at supporting the partnership in its goal of elimination of TB, in particular by promoting the development and adoption of new diagnostic tools.

The goal of this training programme is to train the mycobacteriologists, and technicians working in National TB Programmes (NTP) from Asian countries.

The training is arranged for clinical microbiologists, mycobacteriologists, and laboratory technicians who are engaged in tuberculosis diagnosis. This will help students to acquire the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical skills on rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis and MDR-TB with the NRA, MODS and CRI methods.

Prof. Sarman Singh, course director of ARTP and head of division of clinical microbiology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, AIIMS informed, “After this training course clinical microbiologists or mycobacteriologists will be able to carry out high quality practice in the field, management of MDR-TB in their representative countries and will be able to train others in these methods based on experience gained during this training course.”

CRI methods, MODS and NRA were subsequently judged to have sufficient evidence to consider their use in laboratories that lack access to more sophisticated infrastructure.  WHO has recommended the selective use of one or more of the following non-commercial culture and DST methods, in reference laboratories, and under strict laboratory protocols, and as an interim solution while capacity for genotypic and/or automated liquid culture and DST are being developed.

MODS, as direct or indirect, tests for rapid screening of patients suspected of having MDR-TB. NRA, as direct or indirect, tests for screening of patients suspected of having MDRTB, and acknowledging that time to detection of MDRTB in indirect application would not be faster than conventional DST methods using solid culture. CRI methods, as indirect, tests on M. tuberculosis isolates from patients suspected of having MDR-TB, and acknowledging that time to detection of MDR-TB would not be faster (but less expensive) than conventional DST methods using commercial liquid culture or molecular line probe assays.

Prof. Sarman Singh said that to achieve this goal the culture subgroup of the STOP TB Partnership NDWG (NDWG-CSG) recommends AIIMS TB laboratory as a referral training centre for these newly endorsed non-commercial TB diagnostics and Drug Susceptibility Testing in Asia region. On behalf of the NDWG-CSG recommendation, we organize a training to fullfill the above global goal.

This advanced training course will help the participants to learn the principles behind tuberculosis diagnostics and various existing methods for TB diagnosis. In training curriculum participants will also have direct, hands-on experience on NRA, MODS and CRI method.