Introducing MODS: a low-cost, low-tech tool for high-performance detection of tuberculosis and multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

*Corresponding author (email: ) Imperial College London Wellcome Trust Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine (LC) and Laboratorio de Investigación de Enfermedades Infecciosas (DAJM), Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Av. Honorio Delgado No 430, Urb. Ingeniería, Perú Received : 09-11-06 Accepted : 21-11-06 The urgent need for improved diagnostic tools for detection of tuberculosis (TB) and multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) has been repeatedly highlighted. It is patently absurd that in 2006 the vast majority of global tuberculosis is diagnosed by means of a century-old method, which though inexpensive and simple, fails to detect half of all cases tested. That there are sharper tools which exist yet are beyond the reach of the healthcare systems and patients most in need of them, is an insult to us all and we should be ashamed of this global inequity in TB diagnostics.