They can't even pay for treatment! (Score 1)

This is right up my alley also, and since several of the other posts have explained some of the technology, I won't dwell on it. I have worked with both a Russian doctor and an American doctor (both in Doctors Without Borders, the recent Nobel laureate organization) on this very problem of drug resistance. Right now the problem is not lack of diagnostic materials- they can do that fairly effectively already- the *real* problem is *money*. The old system (USSR) used an effective, though expensive, method of detection: X-rays. They would just blanket an area every few years with massive x-ray exams. People with TB, as well as people with other diseases that affect the lungs, would be found. Not very specific (ie only finds the TB cases) but fairly sensitive (finds real cases). Now the problem is that they can no longer fund this type of program and the Russian doctors don't know any other methods (or employ dated, ineffective methods), so the TB patients go undiagnosed, causing a "hidden" epidemic. Back to cost: It costs $250,000+ per patient to stop the drug resistant TB epidemic in New York recently (second-line drugs cost a unholy load of money). There are 100 times that many people infected with DR TB in Russia. I am sad to say that we won't be able to stop this epidemic. Complacency and inefficiency (and some would say, downright stupidity) has increased the disease burden to the point that it is economically impossible for Russia to fight it. Adding another potentially expensive test will not help things. -Just my pessimistic $.02 BTW - I really hope that we can stop this juggernaut of infection, but it won't be through this test.