Global Study

ENDxTB and our sister project TriageTB form the joint global study “TrENDxTB,” funded, among others, by the EDCTP, NIH and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to advance research into cost-effective, novel, and improved diagnostic strategies for tuberculosis (TB)

Every year, around 10 million people fall ill with TB but only around six million are identified, significantly worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The undiagnosed cases are often referred to as the “missing millions” – millions of people worldwide who do not receive the treatment they need and who unknowingly contribute to the further spread of TB.

TrENDxTB combines several individual initiatives, forging one large clinical project across the globe with the aim of comparing and validating promising new point-of-care (POC) TB tests in different healthcare settings.

Merging individual project components into one initiative has allowed for collaboration of numerous clinical sites in Africa (South Africa, The Gambia, Uganda) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam), as well as laboratories in the USA and Europe. Beyond providing for a wider geographical scope, the joint initiative has also allowed for a wider scientific scope.

The three arms of the TrENDxTB study – an adult TB arm, a paediatric TB arm and an exposed contact arm – will compare research diagnostic tests (both POC and laboratory-based) against the gold standard composite TB tests, also within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through this combined effort, the partners involved in the global study hope to identify the best tests for different healthcare levels and for different phases of TB infection and disease, and to better understand the effect of SARS-CoV 2 on TB test performance and on TB infection and treatment outcomes.