Papua New Guinea's Department of Health has launched its first laboratory to test for drug resistant tuberculosis.
It opened the lab this week in Port Moresby on World Tuberculosis Day and it will for the first time allow in-country detection of drug-resistant TB.
The secretary of Health Pascoe Kase says TB remains a major public health threat in PNG and it kills more adults than any other infectious disease.
He says this is compounded by the emergence of drug-resistant TB, which is harder and more expensive to treat.