Think Global Health: Sustaining TB Innovations to Counter Foreign Aid Cuts

27 March 2026

Think Global Health analysis

A new World Health Organization (WHO) policy allows for portable TB testing, which could help close massive gaps in disease surveillance. Following the WHO’s new guidance, high burden countries can push to completely replace smear microscopy with molecular testing for all people with presumed TB, and meet the WHO diagnostic standard of achieving universal access to rapid diagnostics. Frugal innovations, especially from high TB burden countries, will become central to the next phase of TB elimination.

Read the full analysis here.

*Image credit: TB REACH/Stop TB Partnership

Source: Think Global Health