RESEARCH ARTICLE Higher blood volumes imp l n

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleIn the late 1980s, it was discovered that infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) predisposed individuals to defects in the cell-mediated and humoral immunity resulting into susceptibility to blood stream infections with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), and to other pathogens such as non-typhoid salmonellae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Cryptococcus neoformans and Staphylococcus aureus [1]. Since then, further studies among the HIV patients [2-5]. Studies in Tanzania and Uganda reported MTB to be the most frequently isolated pathogen in 43 % and 13 % of positive blood cultures among the HIV-positive febrile patients, respectively [3,5]. However, blood cultures for Mycobacterium tuberculosis-a slow growing organism, requires around 3–6 weeks, a time period during which patients deteriorate markedly and may die before a diagnosis is made. Studies have re-ported the 30-day mortality attributed to blood stream TB to be at around 50 % [5,6]. Thus, there is an urgent need for novel tests for rapid diagnosis of blood stream TB