Diagnostics are crucial in mitigating the effect of disease outbreaks. Because diagnostic development and validation are time consuming, they should be carried out in anticipation of epidemics rather than in response to them. The diagnostic response to the 2014–15 Ebola epidemic, although ultimately effective, was slow and expensive. If a focused mechanism had existed with the technical and financial resources to drive its development ahead of the outbreak, point-of-care Ebola tests supporting a less costly and more mobile response could have been available early on in the diagnosis process. A new partnering model could drive rapid development of tests and surveillance strategies for novel pathogens that emerge in future outbreaks. We look at lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak and propose specific solutions to improve the speed of new assay development and ensure their effective deployment.

诊断对于减轻疾病爆发的影响至关重要。由于诊断开发和验证非常耗时，因此应在流行病发生之前进行诊断，而不是对流行病做出响应。对2014-15年度埃博拉疫情的诊断反应虽然最终有效，但反应缓慢且费用昂贵。如果在疫情爆发之前已经有了集中的机制来提供技术和财政资源来推动其发展，那么在诊断过程的早期就可以使用支持成本更低且移动性更好的即时医疗点埃博拉测试。一种新的合作模式可以推动对未来爆发中出现的新型病原体的检测和监测策略的快速发展。