Capacity Building and Hands on Training for Laboratory Personnel
Workshop was organized by Foundation for Medical Research & Hinduja Hospital and Research Centre, through the support of USAID, WHO, TB control programme of Government of India in Mumbai from 24th -28th September 2018.
As India races to end TB by 2025 and minimize the devastation caused by extensive forms of drug resistant tuberculosis, it has added the cutting edge technology of Whole Genome Sequencing for rapid diagnosis of the disease and delineating patterns of drug resistance so that patients are treated in a timely manner with an effective drug regimen. This technology also provides identification of families of TB germs and transmission networks that can inform on disease hot spots and modes of transmission. This would help the RNTCP in increasing the success of drug resistance TB treatment which remains globally at a low level of 55% accompanied by high mortality and also intensify disease control where most needed.
Through the support of the USAID, WHO and the TB Control Program of the Government of India, a technical hands on workshop of 5 days was undertaken in Mumbai from 24–28 September, 2018 with technical inputs from the FMR and the Hinduja Hospital. Twelve participants from six national referral labs in the country equipped recently with a genome sequencing machine are being given hands on training to augment their competencies in both use and interpretation of the technology. Besides trainers from the Foundation and the Hinduja Hospital, trainers have been invited from Public Health England Laboratories Birmingham, European Bioinformatics Institute Cambridge and the WHO referral laboratory, Milan to train the Indian participants. It is expected that the workshop will be followed up with further on site and remote support to the national laboratories before application of this technology in the RNTCP.
India therefore succeeds UK as the second country in the world to begin to apply Whole Genome Sequencing for clinical diagnostics and surveillance.
