Kerala has been accorded sanction by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) to use Truenat test to diagnose Nipah. Hospitals with BSL 2 level labs can perform the test. The standard operating procedure for the same will be prepared, Health Minister Veena George has said.
Zika (ZIKV), Dengue (DENV) and Chikungunya viruses (CHIKV) co-circulate in the same geographical areas during the same seasonal period through the same biting arthropods.
Vector-borne diseases continue to contribute significantly to the global burden of disease and cause epidemics that disrupt health security and cause wider socioeconomic impacts around the world.
On a brighter Thursday morning in March 2023, we set on a journey from Kisumu to Navakholo Sub County Hospital, Kakamega County, one of the beneficiaries of the 38 TB molecular Truenat machines rolled out in the country last year.
India’s diagnostics sector has always been a sweet spot for investors, and gained further traction from private equity players during the Covid-19 pandemic. Temasek- and Motilal Oswal PE-backed Molbio Diagnostics is no different. Molbio attained a valuation of $1.6 billion last year when Temasek led an $85-million (around Rs 680 crore)…
Read moreMolbio will help Shanmukha with the development, manufacturing and commercialisation of the platform, in line with its vision of enabling the availability of futuristic health technologies to the world.
“It took almost two decades of research, development and commercialisation efforts to make Truenat the world’s first and only truly pointof-care, multi-disease real-time PCR platform that is completely laboratory independent and that can be deployed in the most remote locations,” says Sriram Natarajan,Director, Molbio Diagnostics.
The aim of the partnership is to bridge this gap and enable most basic tests to be performed in near-patient settings. Both companies are collaborating on the development of AI-powered, battery-operated, portable devices for many diagnostic tests in the fields of haematology, biochemistry, electrochemistry, and others.
India is currently seeing a surge in influenza viral infections due to H3N2 and H1N1. Therefore it is of utmost importance to have an early confirmatory diagnosis to initiate rapid disease management efforts for controlling the spread and reducing influenza-related morbidity and mortality, both during seasonal epidemics and pandemics.
According to the plan, the Health Department will procure an additional 100 indigenous molecular-testing machines called Truenat. Currently, there are 229 Truenat machines at public hospitals in urban areas.
