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NUNAVUT
With Canada's highest tuberculosis rate - 65 times the national rate - Nunavut is the ideal place for a test project that will see TB test results returned within two hours instead of weeks, Nunavut's Health minister said at a funding announcement March 22.

Qikiqtani General Hospital lab manager Chad Zentner, left, elicited laughs when he suggested he should be paid six times as much to do the work of the six technicians whom Dr. Gonzalo Alvarez, second from left, said an advanced tuberculosis testing machine would replace, during a funding announcement for the machine by federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, right. - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo

"The earlier you diagnose whether a person has TB or not, the earlier we can start to treat them and help them recover," Keith Peterson said, introducing the government's new microwave-sized automatic TB testing machine at Iqaluit's Qikiqtani General Hospital. The device - the latest in the fight against the potentially fatal respiratory illness - will be used as part of a trial to see if it can effectively diagnose TB in a high-risk, remote setting.

"This is the first time the new test will be evaluated in a clinical setting in Canada," federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said. "The research will also help us set Canadian guidelines for its use."

If successful, the test could replace the smear and culture process, which will be used in tandem with the new Xpert MTB/RIF test during the trial. Dr. Gonzalo Alvarez of the University of Ottawa and Dr. Madhukar Pai of McGill University will receive $350,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) over three years to conduct the trial.

"We will evaluate the test's accuracy, reduction in diagnostic treatment delays and the cost-effectiveness," Alvarez said.

"By being able to diagnose quickly, we will be able to dramatically reduce the spread of TB in the years to come," Aglukkaq noted.

At 304 infections per 100,000 people, Nunavut is ground zero for the fight against the disease in Canada.

"Tuberculosis is a health problem that has been with us for far too long, especially here in Nunavut," Aglukkaq said. "By making people more aware of TB and being able to diagnose it more quickly, we are taking important steps to fighting tuberculosis."

Among those steps was another announcement that the CIHR will fund the continuation of Taima TB (Inuktitut for Stop TB), the successful anti-TB awareness program that ran in Iqaluit last year.

Through the creation of videos that were distributed on the Internet and door-to-door by Inuktitut-speaking Taima TB "champions," the program distributed the message to 444 people, and screened 300 people in high-risk Iqaluit neighbourhoods. Of the 90 tested for the disease, four had active cases of TB and were treated.

Program partner Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.'s vice-president Jack Anawak praised the involvement of Inuit in the research throughout the project.

"When the researchers came the first time, we (the Inuit) were the research," he said, noting the contrast in how Inuit were involved in every step of the Taima TB process. "There was (an old) saying that an Inuit family consisted of a mother, father, two kids and an anthropologist. We are happy to be part of the research in pursuit of better health outcomes."

The funding, $100,000, will allow the program to expand to two yet-to-be-chosen Nunavut communities. The communities will be chosen in the next few months, Alvarez said.

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