Covid is having one huge positive impact if governments seize it.
In its results Roche said of diagnostics equipment – “we are installing in one year what we have installed the prior five years. So we are more than doubling our installed base out there of the systems.“
This huge increase in capacity, they go on to say, could be used to detect HPV (saving 300,000 women’s lives who die of cervical cancer every year), HepC (helping 80 million people who live with this disease), and Tuberculosis (“one-fifth of population has infection of the bacteria of tuberculosis worldwide”).
“We need to start to recognize what health care systems can do by intervening much earlier. And I have to say, there is such an opportunity and governments need to get going on this. I’m sorry to get a bit emotional on this, but I have been fighting for 10 years with governments to include HPV screening and all the clinical data is out there, and they need to get going, and not just you know let it go, like they have in the past.“
