Syndromic Testing Could Transform Infectious Disea
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The coronavirus pandemic put a spotlight on the potential danger of infectious diseases and has helped spur research to develop faster and more efficient means of diagnosing infectious diseases. Early diagnosis of infectious diseases is critical to developing proper treatment and prevention protocols. It can save a patient’s life and prevent them from spreading the infectious disease to other people while they are still undiagnosed, reducing the likelihood of outbreaks occurring and crippling healthcare systems.
With the demand for quick and accurate infectious disease diagnosis rising by the day, researchers are constantly working to develop novel techniques such as syndromic infectious disease testing. Rather than looking for and isolating certain pathogens individually, syndromic infectious disease testing examines a wide range of clinical “syndromes,” or symptoms, to identify an infectious disease. Compared to traditional tests, which can only identify one pathogen at a time, this type of testing is much more effective at spotting several pathogens simultaneously in a single test.
While conventional testing methods have more than proven their effectiveness, these tests often call for long lab analyses and can fail to identify less common or emerging pathogens.
On the other hand, syndromic infectious disease tests such as Multiplex PCR (mPCR) can correctly identify the genetic material of numerous pathogens in a much shorter time frame, granting physicians a much faster and more precise infectious disease diagnostic tool.
Rapid and accurate diagnostic tools such as syndromic testing are critical for infectious diseases, including COVID-19, that can spread through communities with relative ease and quickly overwhelm medical centers. They can reduce wait hours for disease testing from days to mere hours, allowing patients to receive their diagnoses much faster and begin treatment before they can spread the disease to friends and family.
In many cases, the inherent danger of infectious diseases lies in their ability to quickly spread through populations and place incredible strain on local medical systems. Traditional testing techniques may work in many cases, but the often-long wait times mean that patients have more time to potentially spread their disease before they can begin treatment.
Syndromic testing can limit disease transmission by allowing hospitals to quickly diagnose infectious diseases, isolate patients and treat infections before they spread. On top of limiting community infections, syndromic testing allows for early intervention, which can improve the odds of patient recovery and raise survival rates.
By accurately determining the genetic code of numerous pathogens, syndromic testing also allows physicians to deploy more accurate treatments, which can significantly reduce infectious disease severity.
When infectious disease diagnosis is accurate and fast, it is easier for the existing treatments and those being developed by for-profit entities such as Scinai Immunotherapeutics Ltd. (NASDAQ: SCNI) to be effective in halting the massive cost associated with disease outbreaks.
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