Qiagen approved a decision by the U.S centers for Disease Control to use modern blood-based tests (IGRA) for tuberculosis (TB) screening.
The CDC Division of Global Migration and Quarantine provides the Department of State (DOS) and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with TB medical screening guidelines (referred to as Technical Instructions) for both Civil Surgeons and Panel Physicians. The CDC recently issued a notification to all U.S. Civil Surgeons stating that it currently plans for the new changes to medical screening guidelines to go into effect on October 1, 2018, requiring the use of FDA-approved interferon gamma release assay (IGRA) tests for tuberculosis. The use of the tuberculin skin test (TST) will no longer be allowed for use in immigration screening, including children under age 5.
QIAGEN’s QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus), the gold standard and market leader among IGRA tests, has been experiencing significant interest in immigration health surveillance around the world, and is expected to be used even more in the United States as a result of this decision.