NEW TB TEST

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The Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug test that will tell people within hours, rather than days, if they have tuberculosis. The new test is called the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Direct Test and was developed by Gen-Probe Inc. The Gen-Probe test gives results in four to five hours and is 95.5 percent accurate. Tuberculosis infects about 10 million Americans, with about 10 percent of those developing an active case of the disease. The current test for tuberculosis involves intensive laboratory testing and takes approximately one week to get the results. Because the Gen-Probe test missed five percent of the time, all patients will still be required to take the standard TB tests.