Tuberculosis is the biggest killer of people living with advanced HIV, with over 400,000 patients dying each year from the disease. People with advanced HIV, also known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) have very weakened immune systems, leaving them susceptible to common infections like TB, which can quickly become deadly.

Yet TB can be difficult to diagnose in people living with HIV. More than 50% of people with TB/HIV co-infection are unable to produce enough sputum, have low sputum bacillary loads or have extrapulmonary TB which is not diagnosed through sputum.

Simple, more accurate tests are needed. TB-LAM, a rapid, point-of-care urine test, detects lipoarabinomannan (LAM), which is a marker of active TB disease. The WHO recommends TB-LAM specifically for helping to diagnose TB in HIV-positive adults with TB signs and symptoms and a CD4 cell count of ≤100 cells/μL, or those who are very sick, at any CD4 cell count. Since it delivers results in less than 30 minutes and is priced between US$ 2.6643 and US$ 3.50 per test, TB-LAM can be a valuable tool for identifying people with the most urgent need for TB treatment.