Screening multiple samples with a single test gets more people diagnosed using fewer supplies. Two health policy researchers explain how it works and how it could help the US.
The science behind direct-to-consumer gut microbe testing is in its infancy. Here’s what you need to know if you’ve been tempted to get your microbiome analysed.
The U.S. has been scrambling to get testing for the coronavirus up to speed.
AP Photo/Francois Mori
A molecular biologist explains who should get tested, how the tests work and what the US government is doing to make tests available during a rapidly changing crisis.
The lack diagnostic laboratory systems exacerbates antibiotic resistance in Africa.
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Healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to laboratory diagnostics and often have to guess which antibiotics to use for presumed infections.
Decoding all the DNA in a patient’s biological sample can reveal whether an infectious microbe is causing the disease.
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Charles Chiu, University of California, San Francisco
Superfast DNA analysis is now being used to crack medical mysteries when physicians can’t figure out whether an infectious microbe is causing the disease.
False positive results have raised questions about home pregnancy tests.
flickr/Rebecca
The increased demand for home-based diagnostic tests calls for stricter regulation.
A new short drug treatment for tuberculosis, called BPaMZ, is showing promise in trials.
(The National Center for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (Georgia) on behalf of TB Alliance)
We cannot end TB with century-old technologies and poor quality care. It is time to reinvent the way we are managing TB, and overcome our collective failures of the imagination.
The latest World Bank report on South Africa identifies land reform as critical factor of addressing the country’s economic challenges.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
The latest World Bank report on South Africa addresses solutions to the country’s economic challenges.
In low-resource settings many patients cannot access the tests they need for accurate diagnosis, treatment and a chance of survival. Here, patients wait in the Edna Adan University Hospital in Somalia, 2010.
(Shutterstock)
Countries globally should adopt and adapt the World Health Organization’s new Essential Diagnostics List – as a key step in the management of all diseases.
Public health experts enlist the molecular biology tools that create genetically modified organisms – as well as the GMOs themselves – in the fight against emerging infectious diseases.
Developments in miniaturisation can give us point-of-care tests for grave conditions such as cancer and heart disease.
Was Labor’s shadow health minister Catherine King, pictured here with shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, right about cuts to bulk-billing payments?
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Labor’s shadow health minister Catherine King, said that the government has “cut bulk-billing payments for pathology and diagnostic imaging to make patients pay more”. Is that right?