Effective treatment of tuberculosis entails adhering to lengthy TB pharma drugs regimen. To ensure that people implement the duration of treatment scientists have found a clever technique in which simply peeing on paper can lead you to comply with treatment.

Tuberculosis or TB is an airborne infectious disease that’s curable. However it needs strict compliance with TB drugs for months. And many people, particularly in poor countries drop out in the middle because the drugs can trigger nausea and other side effects. This in turn leads to a relapse with drug resistant strains of bacteria, making treatment hard. The consequences are evident from TB statistics. According to the WHO, TB afflicts millions worldwide – of the 9.2 million cases newly diagnosed in 2006, 1.7 million people succumbed to the disease.

The Pee based approach to TB treatment Staff from the Innovations in International Health (IIH) project at MIT, recently devised a program which uses paper-based diagnostics called “XoutTB” with text-messaging technology and service to improve tuberculosis (TB) treatment compliance in poor countries.

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