Mycobacteriological Section

The laboratory of New Delhi tuberculosis Centre is an apex facility serving the UT of Delhi as an Intermediate Reference Laboratory (IRL) for National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP). In addition, the laboratory services are also available to patients from private Hospitals and practitioners. The laboratory is equipped with state of art facilities and has a fully functional BSL3 laboratory. The services offered include: Culture, Drug Susceptibility testing, and Drug Resistance testing by molecular methods such as Xpert MTB/RIF, Truenat, and Line Probe Assay.  The most recent addition to the laboratory is the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) facility

To maintain quality of services, the laboratory undergoes regular rounds of proficiency testing in collaboration with National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases as per the NTEP guidelines. The laboratory has been certified by the Central Tuberculosis Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India to perform tests for the diagnosis of Drug resistant tuberculosis by all the WHO endorsed and NTEP approved diagnostic modalities.  The Laboratory is also accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).

As an IRL, the responsibility of ensuring quality assurance of sputum microscopy and NAAT provided in Delhi state under NTEP has been entrusted to the laboratory. A team from the laboratory visit every NTEP designated Tuberculosis districts/Chest Clinics once a year for On-site evaluation. This is essentially a checklist based evaluation of facilities and procedures of microscopy and NAAT laboratories to evaluate and give feedback as well as recommendations for improvement of work.

The laboratory actively participates in research related activities independently as well in collaboration with National and International partners. Some of the notable studies include the STREAM 2 trial and the BEAT trial. The laboratory has numerous publications to its name in renowned National and Internal Journals.