The first Australasian Conference on Point of Care Testing for Infectious Diseases (POC23) was held on the 14th and 15th March in Sydney. The International Centre for Point-of-Care Testing (ICPOCT) was strongly represented by the Respiratory, TTANGO (Test Treat AND Go for STIs), Syphilis and Hepatitis C Programs, with collaborating partners from the Kirby Institute. In total there were 13 abstracts submitted directly associated with ICPOCT, including 3 oral presentations and 2 posters.
Dr Susan Matthews had the honour of being a keynote speaker, discussing the integration of Point-of-Care testing into community, along with public health and regulatory aspects needed to deliver a sustainable Point-of-Care model.
Oral presentations were delivered by Corey Markus, on evaluation of Point-of-Care operator training programs.
Kelly Andrewartha delivered a rapid-fire oral presentation emphasising the need for robust operator training and quality assurance testing, along with a poster presentation on Quality Assurance testing for SARS-CoV2 RNA detection.
A poster presentation was also delivered by April Rivers-Kennedy from the Syphilis Program on developing and implementation of a training system form for Syphilis Point-of-Care testing.
The Centre looks forward to having a commanding presence at the next conference.