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      Aligning diagnostics to the point-of-care: lessons for innovators, evaluators and decision-makers from tuberculosis and HIV

      research-article
      1 , , 2
      BMJ Global Health
      BMJ Publishing Group
      diagnostics and tools, HIV, tuberculosis, qualitative study

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          Abstract

          Diagnostics, including those that work at point-of-care, are an essential part of successful public health responses to infectious diseases and pandemics. Yet, they are not always used or fit intended use settings. This paper reports on key insights from a qualitative study on how those engaged with developing and implementing new point-of-care (POC) diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV ensure these technologies work at POC. Ethnographic fieldwork between 2015 and 2017 consisting of 53 semistructured interviews with global stakeholders and visits to workshops, companies, and conferences was combined with 15 semistructured interviews with stakeholders in India including providers, decision-makers, scientists and developers and visits to companies, clinics and laboratories. Our results show how developers and implementer of HIV and TB POC diagnostics aim to know and align their diagnostics to elements in more settings than just intended use, but also the setting of the developer, the global intermediaries, the bug/disease and the competitor. Actors and elements across these five settings define what a good diagnostic is, yet their needs might conflict or change and they are difficult to access. Aligning diagnostics to the POC requires continuous needs assessment throughout development and implementation phases as well as substantive, ongoing investment in relationships with users. The flexibility required for such continuous realigning and iteration clashes with established evaluation procedures and business models in global health and risks favouring certain products over others. The paper concludes with suggestions to strengthen this alignment work and applies this framework to research needs in the wake of COVID-19.

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          Using thematic analysis in psychology

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            Point-of-Care Testing for Infectious Diseases: Diversity, Complexity, and Barriers in Low- And Middle-Income Countries

            Madhukar Pai and colleagues discuss a framework for envisioning how point-of-care testing can be applied to infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries.
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              Development, roll-out and impact of Xpert MTB/RIF for tuberculosis: what lessons have we learnt and how can we do better?

              The global roll-out of Xpert MTB/RIF (Cepheid Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has changed the diagnostic landscape of tuberculosis (TB). More than 16 million tests have been performed in 122 countries since 2011, and detection of multidrug-resistant TB has increased three- to eight-fold compared to conventional testing. The roll-out has galvanised stakeholders, from donors to civil society, and paved the way for universal drug susceptibility testing. It has attracted new product developers to TB, resulting in a robust molecular diagnostics pipeline. However, the roll-out has also highlighted gaps that have constrained scale-up and limited impact on patient outcomes. The roll-out has been hampered by high costs for under-funded programmes, unavailability of a complete solution package (notably comprehensive training, quality assurance, implementation plans, inadequate service and maintenance support) and lack of impact assessment. Insufficient focus has been afforded to effective linkage to care of diagnosed patients, and clinical impact has been blunted by weak health systems. In many countries the private sector plays a dominant role in TB control, yet this sector has limited access to subsidised pricing. In light of these lessons, we advocate for a comprehensive diagnostics implementation approach, including increased engagement of in-country stakeholders for product launch and roll-out, broader systems strengthening in preparation for new technologies, as well as quality impact data from programmatic settings.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                BMJ Glob Health
                BMJ Glob Health
                bmjgh
                bmjgh
                BMJ Global Health
                BMJ Publishing Group (BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR )
                2059-7908
                2020
                18 November 2020
                : 5
                : 11
                : e003457
                Affiliations
                [1 ]departmentHealth, Ethics & Society/Care and Public Health Research Institute , Maastricht University Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences , Maastricht, The Netherlands
                [2 ]departmentDepartment of Medical Microbiology, Care and Public Health Research Institute , Maastricht University Medical Centre , Maastricht, The Netherlands
                Author notes
                [Correspondence to ] Dr Nora Engel; n.engel@ 123456maastrichtuniversity.nl
                Article
                bmjgh-2020-003457
                10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003457
                7677375
                33208314
                288ca3da-c830-4900-920a-fb5539b7bc85
                © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

                This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

                History
                : 15 July 2020
                : 03 October 2020
                : 06 October 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003246, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek;
                Award ID: 16.158.004
                Categories
                Original Research
                1506
                Custom metadata
                unlocked

                diagnostics and tools,hiv,tuberculosis,qualitative study

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