UGANDA — The World Health Organization recommended the MiniDock MTB tuberculosis test in March 2026. The endorsement marked the first official WHO recommendation for a TB diagnostic that can be used at community sites without laboratories and with minimal technical expertise.

The MiniDock MTB is a portable device that uses $4 tests to detect tuberculosis from tongue swabs or phlegm samples within 30 minutes. It is designed to operate in rural clinics, community health posts, and even outdoors, using either a power bank or wall power. The setup costs under $400 and requires minimal training to use.

Developed by Guangzhou, China–based company Pluslife Biotech, the test begins with a tongue swab or phlegm collection. The sample tube is spun and heated to release genetic material, then poured into a test card and loaded into the platform, which detects TB bacterial DNA in 12 to 25 minutes.

In a study led by pulmonologist Adithya Cattamanchi and colleagues, tongue swabs and phlegm samples were collected from 1,380 people aged 12 or older across seven high-TB-burden countries. The MiniDock MTB successfully detected TB in 86 percent of TB-positive phlegm samples and 80 percent of TB-positive tongue swabs. Its phlegm-based performance met WHO accuracy goals, outperformed smear microscopy by 24 percent, and was comparable to that of expensive lab-based DNA diagnostics.

Smear microscopy, used for about 150 years, detects TB-causing bacteria in phlegm within 24 hours but misses more than 40 percent of cases and cannot be adequately performed by at least one in four patients, including children, people with HIV, and the elderly. Over one-quarter of the more than 10 million people who develop tuberculosis annually remain undiagnosed or untreated.

"Designed to work anywhere: a rural clinic, a community health post, even outdoors," optimizing roughly a decade of research on oral swabs for TB, says Adithya Cattamanchi. "Opens a pathway to getting accurate molecular TB testing into the clinics where most people with TB actually show up," he said.

Emily MacLean, an epidemiologist conducting TB screenings with MiniDock MTB but not involved in the original study, acknowledged a limitation: "When there aren’t many bacteria present, it is just harder for tests to find a signal." Amira Roess, an epidemiologist at George Mason University College of Public Health who also was not part of the study, said MiniDock MTB should be used alongside other tests to improve early TB detection.