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A small company run by a 31-year-old Stanford dropout is shaking up the world of clinical diagnostics. Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos has invented a way of running some 30-odd lab tests with a single drop of blood.

For those squeamish about of phlebotomies – the process of puncturing a vein with a needle to draw blood – Theranos is a white knight providing a way to give a blood test with a single prick of a fingertip instead of a big hypodermic syringe drawing a large vials of blood drawn from the arm. That single drop of blood run through a Thernos diagnostic kit is supposed to be able to detect cancer biomarkers, cholesterol levels, drugs, infections and more.

The technology has received a thumbs-up from the US Food and Drugs Administration, which has declared it as effective as the current hypodermic needle method. In the US, Theranos might be spearheading a shift in medical information accessibility from hospitals and physicians directly to patients – at least, that’s what founder CEO Holmes is hoping for as she explains in this video.

But a blood testing revolution is welcome in any part of the world including in India. India has 1.2 billion people of whom more than 2 million live with HIV, more than 2 million with tuberculosis and more than 40 million with Hepatitis B. Genetic blood disorders like haemophilia and thalassemia are rife in the Indian population. According to the Indian Genetic Disease database there are 32 haemophilic babies born for every 1,000 live births. All these millions of people require regular and frequent blood tests without the fear that reused needles and unsanitary conditions in which blood is drawn will only cause more disease.

Telemedicine is already catching on in India, where patients in rural areas can connect to doctors via video instead of making long treks to their nearest Public Health Centres that may or may not be functioning. A cheap, painless, quick and portable blood test – who wouldn’t want that?