Casting for the Cure

A new test that can detect multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis in two days instead of the standard two to three months promises to help significantly improve treatment and prevent the spread of the airborne infection, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Experts discussed multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis at a news conference Monday in Geneva. Dr. Mario C. Raviglione, second from right, of the W.H.O., said a new test was “revolutionary.”
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Multiple-drug-resistant TB, or MDR-TB, is a growing public health problem in the world. Five percent of new TB cases are resistant to first-line drugs. That is 450,000 of the nine million new TB cases that are detected each year, the W.H.O. says.

In the United States, the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis among foreign-born TB patients has been about 1.5 percent, roughly three times the percentage among American-born patients with TB.

“The new test is revolutionary,” said Dr. Mario C. Raviglione, W.H.O.’s director of tuberculosis control, because “it changes completely the way we will be dealing with MDR-TB.”

The difficulty in detecting cases rapidly and accurately is a major obstacle in tuberculosis control. In most developing countries, cases cannot be detected easily or at all, leading to lags in starting proper treatment that can lead to a patient’s death and the further spread of resistant strains.

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The country’s two largest electronic-prescription networks Tuesday announced a merger, creating a single, secure network for the exchange of digital health information.

In a cashless transaction, which closed late Monday, RxHub LLC, a joint-venture of pharmacy-benefit managers, CVS Caremark Corp., Express Scripts, Inc. and Medco Health Solutions, Inc., will combine its operations with SureScripts, a private company founded by the National Community Pharmacists Association and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. The merger isn’t subject to antitrust review because the fair market value of the combined entity isn’t high enough, according to the companies.

The owners of RxHub and SureScripts will each retain a 50% stake in the new venture, which will initially go by the name SureScripts-RxHub, LLC, according to executives from the two companies.

The initiative is the latest in a flurry of recent moves that are likely to speed the adoption of paperless prescriptions, seen as a useful but little-used tool. The health care industry aims to shift from costly, error-prone paper prescriptions to more streamlined electronic methods that have the potential to improve patient safety and reduce the cost of care, but which also raise questions about the security and privacy of patient data.

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