Discussion

Many institutes and commercial organisations around the world are working on new and innovative parasite diagnostic tools. The reality is that few of these innovations will ever be commercially developed and fewer still will reach commercial adoption. Parasite diagnostics is a technically challenging and complex area, however most new diagnostics tools will fail due to an inability to provide an integrated, end to end solution. An integrated solution needs to connect the sample collection, processing, analysis, reporting, interpretation and most importantly, an ability to deliver this information to those on the front line of parasite management. Regardless of the technology used to analyse a sample, future parasite diagnostic approaches will be transformed by utilising the combined power of collaboration and cloud computing. By working more collaboratively, science and commercial entities can deliver an integrated and powerful platform that enables easily access to live data, linked and supported by expertise that will empower decision makers to make faster, more informed and accurate disease management decisions.