'Devices that can screen a large number of people fast and cost-effectively are needed'

Diagnostics plays an important role in helping patients fight any disease with accurate diagnosis and timely treatment. This was tested during the recent onslaught of Covid-19. The pandemic prompted diagnostics players upgrade their infrastructures to cope with the challenge. Nagesh Joshi interviewed (Hony) Brig Dr Arvind Lal - Executive Chairman, Dr Lal PathLabs, asking him to comment on diagnostics for infectious diseases. Excerpts of the interview:

- Nagesh Joshi

What, according to you, were the various challenges faced by the companies involved in the disease diagnostics space during the pandemic?

As COVID-19 was a novel virus, detecting, containing, treating and managing the disease proved to be difficult for everyone. Lockdowns across the world to contain the disease posed additional logistical burden. Test, Trace and Treat became the diktat to fight COVID-19 and 'Testing' came under the spotlight.

Initially we faced a challenge in procurement and supply of test kits, reagents and other consumables. This was resolved by working closely with our reliable and sturdy network of suppliers. ICMR quickly validating the newly launched test kits also came in as a huge help.

COVID also forced us to think outside the box- literally, when we set-up a BSL2 level Container Lab in our National Reference Lab in Rohini, Delhi. This helped us processing greater volumes of samples simply by providing a place to unbox and add buffer to the samples before the actual testing started. With this, we were able to insulate our lab premises and staff from threat of COVID.

As everyone was dealing with the unknown, teething troubles with various states in terms of compliance, operations, reporting and pricing were also faced.

Which approaches and techniques are considered suitable (and safe) for diagnosis of infectious diseases today?

Infectious diseases are caused by Bacteria, Viruses, Fungi and Parasites and the clinical symptoms are often a mix complex of fever, cough, cold, diarrhea, rashes, etc. which are generally site specific. The best way to diagnose infectious diseases is to go for site-specific sampling and subject it to PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) that detects genetic material from a specific organism. This is the fastest, most sensitive and specific way to detect the causative agent of the infection.