The inhabitants of poor nations will now be able to find out whether they have been infected with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in two days against the standard two to three months they take.

Currently, it is estimated that only 2 per cent of cases of MDR-TB  which does not respond to first-line drugs are being properly diagnosed and treated, and 400,000 new cases are reported every year.

The new schemes launched on Monday jointly by the World Health Organisation, the Stop TB Partnership, the international drug purchase facility UNITAID and the

Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics  hope to boost that proportion to over 15 per cent over the next four years.

In poor countries, most TB patients are tested for MDR-TB only after it is found they do not respond to standard treatments, but do not receive crucial second-line drugs until their diagnosis is confirmed two or three months later.

One of the two projects announced is a rapid molecular method, known as line probe assays, to detect the strain in less than two days, and it will be employed in 16 countries, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Myanmar and Uzbekistan.

The second entails increasing the supply of drugs to treat MDR-TB in 54 countries, and seeks to slash by 20 per cent the price of second-line drugs by 2010.