Issues with Traditional Testing

Traditional testing is a reactive approach. In order to develop a testing assay, the pathogen has to be known and preferably sequenced in order to develop a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based test. The development of a testing assay typically takes at least two to three years, and diagnostic companies will only undertake such a development if the potential market for such tests is sufficiently large. Pathogen inactivation, on the other hand, is not dependent on precise knowledge of a given pathogen. Pathogens can be inactivated independent of their genomic structure.