Secretary of the Indian Chest Society, Dr Rajesh Swarnakar and Abbott’s General Manager for the Rapid Diagnostics business in India, Sunil Mehra recently spoke about the need for testing, a crucial step to enhance pneumonia care.

According to them, timely diagnosis, such as through point-of-care rapid testing, can quickly guide targeted treatment delivery by care providers, enabling better patient outcomes.

Point-of-care tests, such as urinary rapid antigen tests, can overcome the barrier of waiting time for an accurate diagnosis with laboratory tests. A rapid test is a powerful tool in the hands of doctors to enable quick testing and swift identification of the causative pathogen, often in as little as 15 minutes. As a result, care providers in clinical settings can easily recommend appropriate, targeted therapeutic approaches.

Dr Swarnakar adds, “Care must be taken to follow the Indian Chest Society-National College of Chest Physicians (ICS-NCCP) established India-specific pneumonia guidelines, ensuring accurate diagnosis is received to guide proper disease management and treatment that addresses and alleviates the patient’s condition. Given the waiting time associated with laboratory-based culture tests, rapid diagnostics can be adopted to streamline this process.”

Mehra opines, “At Abbott, we are committed to streamlining care for pneumonia patients through reliable and rapid diagnostics, such as with our urinary antigen card, which provides results in 15 minutes. With this easy-to-use technology, patient wait times are reduced as well as the burden on laboratories. As part of our broader Test-Target-Treat initiative, we are focusing on empowering care providers to make targeted treatment decisions sooner with rapid diagnostics. This helps facilitate prompt and effective treatment, so patients benefit from improved outcomes.”