Polymerase Chain Reaction targeting insertion sequence IS6110

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic contagious disease which has a major impact on global public health problem. The disease is caused by an obligate aerobic intracellular bacillus called, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). Tuberculosis kills ~2 millions people each year, and in 1989, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that ~300,000 children under 15 years of age die of tuberculosis per year worldwide (WHO-WHO/TUB, 2003). Pediatric tuberculosis diagnosis is impeded by difficulty obtaining sputum samples from children and the paucibacillary nature of their disease that often necessitates invasive procedures such as gastric aspiration or bronchoscopy (WHO, 1995). Recently, it has been shown that induced sputum has comparable diagnostic sensitivity to gastric aspirate in HIV-positive and -negative children, whereas some other studies have shown less promising results for induced sputum (Zar et al., 2005). Although less invasive than gastric aspirates, induced sputum is still unpleasant and requires precautions to prevent airborne tuberculosis transmission to staff and other patients (Schoch et al., 2007).