In an ideal world, treatment will follow diagnosis and treatment will be tailored to the exact cause of the illness. Lack of access to good, affordable tests and quality-assured laboratories is one reason why health-care providers skip the process of diagnosis and begin treatment with medicines. How can essential medicines be delivered, without essential diagnostics? While the WHO published the first essential medicines list (EML) in 1977, the agency published the first EDL only last week. While India has had a national list of essential medicines (NEML) since 2003, there is no equivalent list of essential diagnostics.

Source: The Hindu May 26, 2018 18:33 UTC