The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the gap of diagnostics capacities between countries, and how diagnostic capacities directly lead to response capacity. The pandemic was also a time for countries to review existing resources, technologies, and capabilities to diagnose, and for the world to realize the importance of diagnostics for disease response.

Amid this recognition, the World Health Assembly (WHA) 2023 passed a resolution to strengthen diagnostics capacity. Following the resolution, countries need to ensure that essential diagnostic tools and tests are affordable and accessible nationwide and support local production of diagnostic tools and tests. This must happen to essential tests for all diseases relevant to the local context, including neglected diseases, and beyond pandemics alone.

In resource-limited settings where there is limited availability of tests, healthcare providers often end up sending samples to far away laboratories, which can mean up to weeks or months of waiting before getting results. Delays like this can mean delayed responses to outbreaks and more than anything, lives being unnecessarily lost. The solution needs to happen on various fronts: there should be rapid, easy-to-use diagnostic tests abundantly available that meet local health needs, while there should also be an increase in public health laboratory capacities.

This webinar aimed to illuminate various countries' experiences with diagnostic access and their endeavors to ensure nationwide availability of essential tests by strengthening public health laboratories and other diagnostic tools.