A Lab Without a Laboratory

Point of Care Diagnostics in Resource-Limited Settings: A Review of the Present and Future of PoC in Its Most Needed Environment

Point of care (PoC) diagnostics hold particular promise for resource-limited settings, where a central laboratory may be hours away and PoC may be the only viable route to diagnosis. This review maps the bottlenecks that stop promising PoC research from reaching patients in low-income countries, tracing the entire value chain from fundamental research and funding, through prototype design philosophy and regulation, to market penetration, distribution, and actual use at the bedside. Rather than focusing on any single stage, the authors argue the field needs coordinated change across research priorities, economic incentives, training, supply chains, and healthcare-system integration, because a perfectly engineered device still fails if any link in that chain breaks.