If countries can design and produce their own diagnostic kits, they can respond faster to disease outbreaks
In the final days of May, thirty-eight health professionals from across the Americas converged in Rio de Janeiro to complete a course that addresses one of public health's quieter inequities: the gap between where diagnostic technologies are made and where they are most needed. Organized by PAHO and Brazil's Fiocruz, with support from Spain, the training traced the full journey of a diagnostic kit — from identifying a molecular target to navigating regulatory approval — equipping participants not just with technical knowledge, but with the capacity to build that knowledge into their own institutions. It is the kind of investment that does not announce itself loudly, but whose effects, if sustained, compound over time.
- Seventeen countries across the Americas share a common vulnerability: dependence on imported diagnostic technologies that may not fit local disease patterns, budgets, or outbreak timelines.
- Thirty-eight professionals — ministry officials, researchers, regulators, and administrators — gathered in Rio de Janeiro for hands-on training at Fiocruz's production and validation facilities, turning months of virtual instruction into embodied expertise.
- The curriculum moved deliberately from bench to bedside to bureaucracy, covering molecular targeting, PCR and ELISA methods, clinical validation, scale-up engineering, and the regulatory and logistical realities that determine whether a test ever reaches a patient.
- Beyond technical skills, the course generated a regional peer network — structured knowledge-sharing sessions that may prove as durable as any formal credential.
- The initiative sits within PAHO's broader Regional Innovation and Production Platform, a strategic push to make Latin America and the Caribbean less dependent on external suppliers for the tools that detect disease.
- Whether this training translates into new diagnostic capacity will hinge on what awaits participants at home — institutional backing, funding, and political will — but the regional foundation has been deliberately laid.
Thirty-eight health professionals from seventeen countries across the Americas completed an intensive course on diagnostic kit development in late May, gathering at Fiocruz's Rio de Janeiro campus after months of virtual preparation. The program was organized by the Pan American Health Organization alongside Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, with backing from Spain's development and health agencies.
The in-person phase was not ceremonial. Participants toured Biomanguinhos — Fiocruz's vaccine and diagnostic production facility — and visited the diagnostic support unit where tests are developed and validated. The roster was deliberately assembled: ministry officials, national institute researchers, regulators, and administrators — people positioned to carry technical knowledge back into policy and practice.
The curriculum covered the full arc of diagnostic development, from identifying molecular targets and mastering testing platforms like ELISA, PCR, and rapid diagnostics, through clinical validation, production at scale, and quality assurance. Instructors also engaged the harder questions: how to move tools into under-resourced health systems, how to navigate regulatory barriers, how to manage market realities.
The course was framed as part of PAHO's Regional Innovation and Production Platform — a strategic effort to build Latin America and the Caribbean's capacity to design and manufacture health technologies locally. The underlying logic is practical: local production means faster outbreak response, tests adapted to regional disease patterns, and lower costs where resources are scarce.
The training also built something less tangible — a network of peers sharing hard-won experience across borders. Those relationships, informal but durable, become infrastructure for future collaboration. What thirty-eight professionals carry home is not only expertise, but the foundation for diagnostic self-sufficiency. What they build with it depends on what meets them there.
In late May, thirty-eight health professionals from seventeen countries across the Americas gathered in Rio de Janeiro to complete an intensive course on building diagnostic kits—the kind of technical work that sits at the intersection of laboratory science, public health strategy, and the practical challenge of getting reliable disease detection tools into the hands of clinicians who need them.
The course, organized by the Pan American Health Organization working alongside Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, with backing from Spain's international development agency and health ministry, had begun months earlier as a virtual program. But the real work happened over two days at the end of May, when participants arrived at Fiocruz's Rio campus for hands-on training and site visits to the foundation's diagnostic units. These weren't abstract lectures. The attendees walked through Biomanguinhos, Fiocruz's vaccine and diagnostic production facility, and toured the diagnostic support unit where the actual work of developing and validating tests happens.
Who came mattered. The roster included officials from health ministries and national health institutes across the region, along with researchers and administrators from institutions responsible for developing, regulating, producing, and deploying diagnostic technologies. These were the people who would carry the knowledge back home and translate it into policy and practice.
The curriculum traced the entire arc of diagnostic development. Participants studied how to identify molecular targets—the specific biological markers that signal disease. They learned the mechanics of different testing approaches: ELISA, PCR, rapid diagnostic tests. But the course didn't stop at the bench. It moved into the regulatory landscape, the clinical validation process that proves a test actually works in real patients, the engineering of production at scale, and the quality control systems that keep a test reliable across thousands of uses. The instructors also addressed the harder, messier questions: How do you actually get these tools into health systems that lack resources? What are the logistical barriers? The regulatory hurdles? The market realities?
This was framed as part of a larger regional strategy. The Pan American Health Organization has established what it calls a Special Program and Regional Innovation and Production Platform, aimed at building Latin America and the Caribbean's capacity to develop and manufacture health technologies locally rather than depending entirely on imports. The logic is straightforward: if countries can design and produce their own diagnostic kits, they can respond faster to disease outbreaks, adapt tests to local disease patterns, and reduce costs. In contexts where resources are tight, that matters enormously.
The course created something else too—a network. Participants spent time in structured knowledge-sharing sessions, swapping experiences about what works and what doesn't in their own countries. They built relationships with peers facing similar problems across the region. Those connections, often informal but durable, become the infrastructure for future collaboration.
What emerges from this kind of training is harder to measure than a diploma. It's the slow accumulation of technical competence, the confidence to tackle problems that seemed intractable, the sense that solutions don't have to come from outside. Thirty-eight people returned to their countries with deeper expertise in how diagnostic technologies move from research to the clinic. Whether that translates into new tests, faster outbreak response, or more equitable access to diagnostics will depend on what happens next—on institutional support, funding, political will. But the foundation is now in place.
Notable Quotes
Diagnostic tests are essential tools for early disease detection, epidemiological surveillance, and timely outbreak response, especially in resource-limited settings— Pan American Health Organization course materials
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that these professionals learned to develop diagnostic kits rather than just use ones that already exist?
Because when you can make your own tests, you're not waiting for someone else to decide what diseases matter to you. You can design for your specific populations, your specific pathogens. You move faster in a crisis.
But couldn't they just buy kits from companies that already know how to make them?
They could, and they do. But that costs money you might not have, and it means your health system depends on supply chains you don't control. If there's a shortage, or a border closes, or a company stops making something, you're stuck. Building local capacity means resilience.
What's the hardest part of actually making a diagnostic kit?
The technical part is one thing—getting the chemistry right. But the harder part is proving it works reliably in real conditions, getting regulators to approve it, then scaling production without losing quality. That's where most projects fail. This course tried to address all of it, not just the science.
Did these thirty-eight people leave as experts?
No. They left with a foundation and a network. Real expertise takes years of practice. But they now understand the landscape—what's possible, what the obstacles are, who else is working on similar problems. That's the actual value.
What happens to them now?
That depends entirely on their institutions. Some will go back to ministries with real authority to fund research. Others work in labs that can actually build things. Some will hit walls—no budget, no political support. The course gave them tools. Whether they can use them is a different question.