There have been more than 250 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide. At least 5 million people have died from infection by SARS. Many organizations believe these numbers are exaggerated. The devastating effects of this pathogen upon the world’s health and economies can be mitigated with certain steps, especially when testing is involved.
We have seen this with COVID-19, as well as in the past with Zika, Ebola and Zika, so it is important to quickly identify outbreaks in order for them to be contained. Global health surveillance begins with testing. It provides early warnings of possible outbreaks, so that health officials can quickly try to stop or slow down their spread. To do this, diagnostics must be able to identify high-emergency pathogens. There is currently no approved diagnostic test for 60 percent of Blueprint pathogens that have the highest potential to cause disease according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Lack of adequate testing tools increases the risk of pandemics in developing countries, particularly those with low- or middle-incomes. LMICs are areas where infectious diseases are often underdiagnosed. Global health must ensure adequate funding to support the development and accessibility of diagnostics in all parts of the globe, including LMICs. These investments can have a significant impact, even though diagnostics make up a small percentage of overall healthcare costs and drive approximately 70% of healthcare decisions.
COVID-19’s lessons must be learned in order to manage future diseases better and avoid further loss of life.
However, Covid testing near me at the forefront of an outbreak is just one part of robust diagnostics. The world has seen unprecedented vaccine development in a matter of 12 months with COVID-19. Without diagnostic tests to determine whether vaccines work in real-world situations and clinical trials, this result would not have been possible. Some countries abandoned testing once vaccines were available, putting it on the back burner and relying on the vaccines to stop the spread of diseases. This was a mistake.
There is no 100% vaccine coverage or efficacy against COVID-19 variants that are currently emerging. Affordable on-the-spot testing is possible in many countries to help protect people in their homes, schools, workplaces and at home. It can also allow for airline travel to return to pre-pandemic levels. Some countries have gone further with their approach, using extensive testing to implement a zero-COVID strategy. This strategy aims to eradicate COVID-19 completely within the borders of mainland China. Australia, New Zealand and Singapore have now relaxed this policy. However, China has remained true to the original policy and was able limit the spread last year of the Delta variant. In order to provide safe workplaces and environments for all, testing is still an important tool. It will be even more crucial in the face emerging variants of SARS and other pathogens that are likely to spread in the future.
Further technological advancement would be beneficial in testing to address all these concerns. A reverse transcriptase polymerase-chain reaction (PCR), test is the current standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. These tests require samples taken with nasal or throat swabs and expensive machines. They can also take several days to produce results because of backlogs at testing centers. The limited coverage of PCR testing is also restricted by the high cost. These tests proved ineffective for controlling COVID-19’s spread during the pandemic. For slowing transmission in real-world settings, it was necessary to develop simpler, quicker, more accessible, and more affordable tests.
Many companies created COVID-19 rapid antigen testing, which was ready to deploy within eight months of the outbreak. This is another world record. These tests can also be used with a throat or nasal swab to detect a protein part of the coronavirus. They are quicker and cheaper than PCR tests. They are more accurate than PCR tests but they can be used to identify infected individuals with high viral loads and are useful tools in stemming pandemics. Although antigen tests were widespread in high-income countries and some governments hoarded the tests for their citizens, it was regrettable that they were not widely used. These policies, particularly in LMICs with limited diagnostic capabilities, only fuelled the pandemic.
In the event of a pandemic, global access to reliable testing strategies and technologies is crucial. This requires cooperation between countries. Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator was one of the most successful initiatives to combat the pandemic. This collaboration involved governments, scientists and businesses as well as philanthropists and global health organizations to promote the production, distribution, and equitable distribution COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests. Despite the fact that funding for testing was less than the ACT Accelerator members hoped, there were significant achievements. These include halving costs of rapid antigen tests and independently evaluating commercially available tests. In addition, more than 42,000 healthcare workers have been trained to administer the tests in nearly 200 countries. The ACT consortium, which includes FIND, the international alliance for diagnostics where I am chairman, announced in November a $50 million investment to support scaling up testing and treatment packages in LMICs with insufficient diagnostic capabilities and no lifesaving treatments.
Sometimes, the global community has not made the most of diagnostics in order to combat COVID-19. The pandemic has been prolonged by politics and overreliance on vaccines. LMICs have been affected by the effects of high-income countries hoarding vaccines and a general lack of diagnostic capabilities. While cooperative efforts have been successful in addressing some testing gaps, it is important that we learn from the lessons COVID-19 has provided us to help manage future diseases and prevent more deaths.
