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NEW ORLEANS — Researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine have developed a highly sensitive blood test that can find traces of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in infants a year before they develop the deadly disease, according to a study published in BMC Medicine.
Using a small blood sample, the test detects a protein secreted by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB infection. It can screen for all forms of TB and rapidly evaluate a patient’s response to treatment, said lead study author Tony Hu, PhD, Weatherhead Presidential chair in Biotechnology Innovation at Tulane University.
“This is a breakthrough for infants with tuberculosis because we don’t have this kind of screening technology to catch early infections among those youngest groups who are most likely to be undiagnosed,” Hu said. “I hope this method can be pushed forward quickly to reach these children as early as possible.”
Each year, nearly a million children develop TB and 205,000 die of TB-related causes, the Tulane news release states. More than 80% of childhood TB deaths occur in those under the age of 5.
Most of these deaths occur because TB is undiagnosed as children, particularly infants, due to symptoms that are not specific for the disease. These children also have difficulty producing the respiratory samples used for TB detection by the best TB tests now in use.
Even when it is possible to obtain these samples from children, they tend to be less effective for diagnosis, since they often contain much less of the bacteria than samples from adults, Hu said.
His test’s assay, however, uses a small blood sample that can be easily obtained from children of any age to detect a specific protein (CFP-10) that the bacteria secrete to maintain the infection that develops into TB. Since this protein is present at very low levels in the blood, Hu’s assay uses an antibody specific for this protein to enrich it from other proteins in blood and a mass spectrometer to detect it with high sensitivity and accuracy.
Hu and his team used this test to screen stored blood samples collected from 284 HIV-infected and 235 children without the virus who participated in a large clinical trial conducted between 2004-08.
Hu’s group found their test identified children diagnosed with TB by the current gold-standard TB tests with 100% accuracy. The assay also detected 83.7% of TB cases that were missed by these tests, but that were later diagnosed by a standard checklist employing an array of other information collected by each child’s physician (unconfirmed TB cases). Hu’s test also detected CFP-10 in 77% of the blood samples that were collected 24 weeks before children were diagnosed with TB by other methods, indicating its strong potential for early TB diagnosis.
The biomarker from some positive cases can be detected as early as 60 weeks before their TB diseases were confirmed.
Researchers are working to develop an inexpensive, portable instrument to read the test to allow it to be more easily used in resource-limited settings often encountered in areas where TB is prevalent, according to the news release.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Department of Defense.
See a short video by Hu at www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdpzjeqGhH0.

Berwick High's 2021 graduation had to be moved indoors because of bad weather, and masks were as much a part of the event as caps and gowns. But the Class of 2021 successfully completed its last task for BHS on Thursday night. Principal Paul Broussard congratulated the new grads on overcoming more than a year of pandemic obstacles. Student of the Year Abby Williams, shown in the top photo, told her classmates that they are Berwick High graduates now and can achieve amazing things.

The Daily Review/Bill Decker

Stephensville Road at its intersection with La. 70 and Bayou Estates Subdivision are closed to non-residents due to high water from heavy rainfall in recent days.
The closures are in addition to Adell and Edna streets and Landry Lane, which have been closed, St. Martin Parish Sheriff Becket Breaux announced in a news release Thursday morning.
There are sand bag stations available at Stephensville Park, 3257 La. 70; and in Belle River across from the fire station at 1473 East Stephensville Road.
Earlier this week, St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars issued a State of Emergency for the parish due to the rains. A no-wake zone also was issued in Stephensville and Belle River until further notice.

This past weekend, I made a call to a friend, Gerald Foulcard, who happened to be on the water fishing a local bass tournament with his wife.
“Hey Gerald, whatcha up to my friend,” I said when he answered.
I could hear from the wind in the background he was on the water somewhere.
“Me and Angie are fishing a tournament Bruh,” he replied. “We got 15 or 16 pounds in the boat.”
“Really,” I said. “Where you at?”
“Down in Bayou Sale,” he says to me.
“But the water is all nasty and dirty down there,” I say to him as if I’m telling him something he doesn’t already know.
He tells me it is dirty, but they’ve caught over 30 fish. The conclusion I came to was simply there are just some people who can catch fish in a dirty bathtub of water. I’ve got to admit, I’ve never been one of those guys.
Number one for me is fish have to be biting. And, number two, the conditions have to be right. If they’re not, I might as well just stay home. Unlike Gerald, I guess I’m responsible for leaving a lot of fish in the water to be caught another day.
The point of all this is May has never been my — and I’ll include my spouse Christine — best month to fish St. Mary Parish.
I tend to get jealous of the folks who live east of the river. They seem to always catch fish, whether fresh or saltwater.
The fact is spring is high water time for these parts. Although the Atchafalaya River’s flood stage is currently at 5 feet, it’s still a full foot above what’s known as the action level. In short, there is a whole lot of water flowing out the river that travels westerly and does two things in the bays down below.
One, it dirties up the water and two, it makes them fresher. The fresher the water the less saltwater fish like “redfish” are caught in places like Atchafalaya, East Cote Blanche, West Cote Blanche, Weeks and Vermilion bays.
By contrast, east of the river from Four League Bay all the way to Point Aux Chene there tends to be great catches of both red fish and speckled trout in May. I get a lot of daily reports from guide services in those areas. Sometimes it makes me want to sell my bay boat and just use the money to charter a boat and guide service until the money runs out. For one, I think I’m likely to catch a lot more fish that way and two, I’ll definitely have more space under my carport.
The only reasons I don’t is because I can be stubborn and hardheaded. Moreover, I still have a sense of adventure. And honestly, when I do have a good trip, I always feel better about myself, where a little bragging goes a long way to keep me going when I don’t catch.
My wife has a saying, “You can always count on a catfish.” That saying really applies when you’re talking about the month of May. When the water down below receives large amounts of freshwater, usually you stand a better than average chance of filling up an ice chest with pretty blue catfish.
Blue catfish are usually bigger water fish versus channel catfish that prefer narrow or skinny water. Blue catfish also can tolerate slightly higher salinity than channel catfish. Therefore, in the dirty water bays west of the river at this time of year, the salinity may not be conducive to great catches of redfish, but it is for catfish — particularly blue catfish.
There is also some decent bass and bream fishing if you can find some stained or clearer water in canals and other places that might slow the water down for the dirt to fall out.
Bass anglers like my friend Gerald fish “all” year, rain or shine. They are tacticians that approach bass fishing almost like a science. They’re almost religious about it in that they have their own liturgy. On cloudy days they’ll use black and purple-colored lures in clear water and in dirty water use bright white or chartreuse lures.
In dirty water they’ll also use spinner baits in the aforementioned white and chartreuse colors with Colorado blades to obtain a reaction bite from the vibration.
We’ve had a lot of cloudy, rainy days the past several weeks, where the water draining from the marshes has muddied things up pretty bad. With heavy rain this week, it’ll be much the same in the marshes below the Intracoastal. But don’t let that stop you from getting on the water.
Remember, “You can always count on a catfish!”