Point-of-care health technologies make a difference when deployed at point-of-need
SHOBHA SHUKLA - CNS
Vaccines (sitting on a shelf) do not save lives, but vaccination does. Only when people can access vaccines and get vaccinated in a people-centred manner, can we yield desired public health outcomes. Same goes for medicines or diagnostics or other disease prevention tools.
"Unless best of health technologies reach those who are most underserved and need them most, how will we reduce human suffering and avert untimely deaths? Technologies must be made to serve those who need them most. If health technologies cannot be deployed in resource-constrained settings, then they would remain inaccessible to those in acute need. Point-of-care technologies are not enough, we need to deploy them too at point-of-need," said Tariro Kutadza, a noted community rights activist and defender from Zimbabwe.
Tariro Kutadza leads TB People (Zimbabwe) and also supports Zimbabwe Network of People living with HIV. "Yes, we can end TB by bringing diagnostics and other lifesaving services at people's doorsteps!" She was speaking with CNS ahead of 2nd Asia Pacific Conference on Point of Care Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases (POC 2025), Thailand; 10th Asia-Pacific AIDS & Co-Infections Conference (APACC 2025); and 13th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2025), Rwanda.
Follow the science to serve the people
"Recent studies show that up to 50% of new TB cases would not have been diagnosed with TB symptom screening as they had no symptoms at the time of TB screening and diagnosis. These were diagnosed when an X-Ray was done and upfront molecular confirmatory test was offered," said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Principal Advisor of National TB Elimination Programme, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Dr Soumya earlier served as Chief Scientist of World Health Organization (WHO) and Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
India's National TB Prevalence Survey (2019-2021) showed that 43% of those diagnosed with TB would have been missed if X-Ray was not done, as they were asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis. Similar findings came from several other TB prevalence surveys at sub-national level such as those in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
