It's 8 in the morning. Muhammad Arsalan along his four-year son Kashif Arsalan has rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, one of the main trauma centers and tertiary care hospitals of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, situated in Nazimabad, neighboring area of District Central Karachi.
In a hot summer day of Saturday morning, Muhammad Arsalan and his son wearing warm clothes having fever, body pain and shivering, just entered in the OPD of Dr Kamran Ahmed, the general physician.
Dr Kamran has checked them and asked his assistant to take blood samples of both the patients and send it to the ISTOC lab. Within a couple of minutes, he and his son got the blood test reports which show Dengue Positive result.
Muhammad Arsalan is working in a garments factory in Korangi Industrial Area as a computer operator. He was asking about the devices which he has never seen before in any clinic or hospital of Karachi. Doctor Kamran said that it’s a rapid test kit, very fast to get the result.
Arsalan said it is the first time in my life that I can get the result very early otherwise it won't be like this.
He further said that in the past, once you have given your blood it may take at-least two days to know the result and that was the worst time because at one end your are waiting for your result and on the other end your doctor does not start proper treatment as well.
Dr Kamran Ahmed, the OPD doctor, further informed Muhammad Arsalan that it’s a mobile technology called ISTOC, it is a rapid test kit - the only requirement of this that you must have an smart or android phone and make your mobile phone into a Virtual Clinic, no additional attachments are required, just you get your diagnostic result in three steps.
According to Muhammad Ali Jinnah who is the representative of ISTOC in Pakistan has said that in three steps we diagnose the disease.
1st Step: first we got the blood sample, 2nd Step: we put blood on the specific device. 3rd Step: after ten minutes we take a picture of particular disease, devices IDR and our mobile application will send the result in a minute.
So far we are working and diagnosing Malaria, Dengue, HIV, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C. Every disease has different device to diagnose.
Jinnah aacclaimed that ISTOC is registered and approved from FDA and has developed a disruptive mobile solution IDA (immediate diagnostics and analytics).
The globally scalable end-to-end solution has proven to be a powerful product and service, IDA IDR (Infectious Diseases Reader) is a turnkey solution for healthcare professionals in Point of Care diagnostics for infectious diseases, Jinnah added
According to Senior Director Health Service of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation Dr Muhammad Ali Abbasi, initially we are collaborating with ISTOC for diagnosing Dengue, Malaria and Hepatitis and find out how much cost effective it is because they are claiming that there devices are 99.95 percent accurate.
So far 1500 result have been done from ISTOC devices and we rechecked them from PCR and Elisa kit as well all the result are up to the mark.
We have an honour that Karachi is the first city of Pakistan who has introduced this high tech devices for the betterment of poor people for early diagnosis and treatment Dr Abbasi added
Asking about patient data safety and the test result accuracy Muhammad Ali Abbasi said that the process of diagnosing are very simple first take a blood sample of a patient on the device second The test is scanned by the Reader in a mobile phone and third IDA Secure Cloud test results immediately release the diagnosis and Instant results are displayed on the device enabling fast patient treatment.
As far as patient data concern they have a secure data server which is encrypted with highest standards and physically stored in a highly secure and safe location. Results and analysis can be accessed anywhere in the world.
According to the Deputy Mayor of Karachi Arshad Wohra we are planning to spread this technology in other hospitals as well but primarily it's get the best result when we are facing any epidemic like in past we had Dengue and malaria
The other task for us while diagnosing the disease first we give awareness to the patient about the devices because due to low literacy rate majority of patient didn't allow healthcare professionals to take blood sample they usually ask for medicines only and same situation are facing Doctors and healthcare professionals in entire Pakistan Deputy Mayor of Karachi Arshad Wohra added.
Mr Muhammad Ali Jinnah the spokesman of ISTOC Pakistan said that currently ISTOC is working in Bangladesh, Africa, Brazil, Nigeria and other parts of the Europe as well and give the best health care.
According to World Health Organisation the chances of error while diagnosing from naked eye is 20 to 30 percentages as compare to computer technology it reduces so you can the result from 99% accurate.
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