The issues to be addressed while establishing a tuberculosis culture laboratory are discussed in the paper. Primarily the following questions are to be considered: (1) Is it absolutely essential to have a tuberculosis culture laboratory? (2) Will it be big or small? (3) Are there adequate means to continue work in terms of finance, staff, equipment & specimens and (4) Is there a possibility of taking up any other type of bacteriological work, if necessary? Unlike other bacteriology laboratory, a tuberculosis laboratory has some unique features. Due to the slow growth of the organism, cultures need to be incubated for a long time i.e., 8 10 weeks. So an incubator room is required. More number of glassware are needed. Test tubes with cotton plugs are unsuitable as they are likely to dry up. Hence screw capped tubes or McCartney bottles are required to facilitate long incubation of cultures. For performing identification tests, incubators with varying temperatures, i.e., 23, 37, 44, are to be provided. Plenty of cold storage space is needed to stock cultures, media, etc.

The requirement of staff and organisation of work depends upon the number of specimens handled. If 50 specimens per day are likely to be processed, 5 lab technicians, 3 lab attendants, 1 sweeper and 1 bacteriologist are necessary. Once laboratory is opened, maximum benefit should be derived by getting adequate number of specimens.