| | MAY 202219well. Timely diagnosis also helps to avoid presumptive treatment, leading to indiscriminate use of antibiotics, and that has been contributing to an unprecedented rise in antibiotic resistance. Early and accurate diagno-sis enables the initiation of evidence-based treatment for the patient.Molecular diagnostics is one of the prominent & fastest growing methods in anatomic and clinical pa-thology that has the capability to reduce the time to results and provide more accurate diagnosis. It is the state-of-the-art in infectious disease testing. Molecular diagnostics works on DNA/RNA amplification con-cept, hence provides the ability to diagnose disease early in infection because of its excellent sensitivity and specificity. For a long time, molecular diagnostics was an un-derserved segment in the Indian diagnostics scenario, especially the Real-Time PCR technique that was in-vented several decades ago and is considered the gold standard for diagnosing many diseases. Molecular di-agnostics requires a high level of infrastructure and skill dependence, which was the primary reason for not using this technique. There were other issues as well, such as batch testing, logistics issues of sample transportation, and the consequent long turnaround time for results. Therefore, the usage was very limited to confirmatory testing, which was available at a few major Indian city hospitals and centralized laborato-ries.The outbreak of Covid-19 has dramatically in-creased the need for RT PCR tests. This has signifi-cantly increased the number of labs doing molecular testing in the country. Due to the growing awareness of molecular testing in India, there is high demand for the early diagnosis of infectious disease. Due to this increased awareness, many public and private organi-zations are investing funds to accelerate R&D in the field of molecular diagnostics.The increasing prevalence of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, coupled with tests for sexually transmitted diseases or infec-tions like HIV and HPV are driving the segment's growth. In the near future, molecular testing is ex-pected to become more of a routine clinical diagnos-tics tool not only for Covid, but for a wide range of infectious diseases. For instance, point of care molecu-lar tools such as Truenat will help in providing equal access to high-quality diagnostics across all segments of society to minimize the devastating impact of de-layed diagnosis.Going forward, enhancing primary healthcare in-frastructure for decentralized molecular testing is an urgent need to prepare communities for managing existing diseases and combating future disease out-breaks. It is only point-of-care molecular testing that will pave the way, enabling reliable results with rapid turnaround time. The ability to accurately and rapidly diagnose, counsel, and treat patients on the same day of presentation would decrease the number of patients lost to follow-up.Early disease diagnosis and case detection will be a success only when we are able to synergize primary care and public health. Without a primary care physi-cian having access to quick and accurate diagnosis, no-tifying public health and precise & prompt treatment might not be initiated. If the cause is not detected ac-curately, then these infections can spread or reoccur. The innovative medicines and diagnostics tests are only meaningful and impactful if they reach the peo-ple who need them - irrespective of where they live.
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