August 03, 2023
In the Hans India, OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan talked about the importance of point-of-care diagnostics in the fight against hepatitis for World Hepatitis Day.
He said, “In India, approximately 40 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B, while around 12 million people are affected by hepatitis C. The substantial prevalence of these conditions, coupled with their adverse impact on public health, necessitates the implementation of effective strategies to combat their spread. A significant challenge in addressing hepatitis is the high number of silent carriers and individuals unaware of their infection…A major contributing factor to this is the elevated cost of diagnostics. However, treatment costs for certain variants of hepatitis have considerably decreased, mainly due to the availability of affordable medications from local pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, there exists an urgent need for accessible and high-quality point-of-care (POC) diagnostics to effectively combat the hepatitis epidemic.”
Find the article here.
