Why are Millions Dying from a Curable Disease?
HealthSpark, Episode 22: Rushdy Ahmad, Director of the Diagnostics Accelerator at Harvard's Wyss Institute, examines why curable diseases like tuberculosis still claim so many lives. He discusses what it will take across science, funding, and policy to get simple tests into the places where people need them most.
What responsibility do we bear for "unnecessary" deaths?
When a curable disease still causes a large number of preventable deaths, the failure is no longer clinical. It is structural. Calling these deaths "unnecessary" forces us to ask why we tolerate gaps in diagnosis and treatment that consistently map to poverty, rural geography, and social marginalization. There is a shared responsibility to examine how the current rules, incentives, and priorities may be normalizing avoidable loss of life and what needs to change to focus on earlier detection, better access, and more equitable health outcomes.
What makes a diagnostic accessible?
Just because a test exists in a hospital or reference lab does not mean it is necessarily accessible. For TB and similar conditions, access to testing functions is itself a powerful determinant of health. Many current pathways require patients to provide multiple samples, travel to distant facilities, and wait days for results. And they often pay out of pocket at the point of care. These demands systematically exclude people who lack time, money, or proximity to well-resourced facilities. These barriers mirror the broader inequities shaped by race, class, gender, and geography. An accessible test is low cost, can be run in clinics or community settings, and delivers results quickly enough to start treatment on the spot.
How can innovation be directed toward health equity?
Advances in diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital tools don't always improve health outcomes for those at greatest risk. New technologies often concentrate in well-resourced hospitals and profitable markets, while clinics serving high-burden communities rely on outdated methods. Shifting this trajectory requires intentional choices, such as designing low-cost, easy-to-use tools for frontline settings and structuring payment and reimbursement that reward early detection and access. When these elements are aligned, innovation is more likely to reach historically overlooked populations.
Key question to take forward:
As you watch the video and consider your own setting, you might reflect on:
How might your decisions influence who benefits the most from progress in health care?