Expanding the role of diagnostic and prognostic tools for infectious diseases in resource-poor settings.

Author's introduction:

The life-saving impact of new diagnostic and prognostic technologies that aim to reduce the burden of infectious diseases is often not well understood. Although the potential benefits of other interventions such as drugs and vaccines can be estimated by simply counting the numbers treated and multiplying that by the effect size of the intervention, understanding the role that diagnostics can have requires more complex analyses. As for other interventions, the performance of the tool is important. Few, if any, diagnostic tools have 100% sensitivity and specificity or a perfect quantitative range. However, unlike drugs or vaccines, the impact of the diagnostic depends on the actions taken after the diagnostic or prognostic test result. [...]

Since 2006 there has been encouraging progress in the development and use of new diagnostics, but many gaps remain. By way of a response, this collection presents new modelling work that addresses the potential impact of diagnostic tools both at the individual and population level.