There is increasing interest in the identification of novel biomarkers for TB -in the contexts of diagnosis, treatment response monitoring, prediction of relapse or re-activation and as surrogates for vaccine protection. Most studies have focused on individual markers such as secreted M. tuberculosis antigens, serological responses, microbiological indices and host inflammatory markers, with mixed results [7, 25] . There is growing recognition of the advantages of using combinatorial biomarker panels or 'omics'-based methods to achieve sufficient levels of accuracy [25] . However, relatively few studies have utilized such strategies.