This year the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Health Day (7^th April), focuses attention on the need for everyone to be able to access healthcare services and to obtain the care they need, when they need it, right in the heart of their community, observes GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Universal health coverage (UHC) is WHO’s number one goal and to measure global progress the performance of 16 essential health services are analysed and classified into 4 categories: i) Reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health; ii) Infectious diseases; iii) Noncommunicable diseases; and iv) Service capacity.

Alison Casey, Medical Devices Analyst at GlobalData, comments; “The in vitro diagnostics (IVD) medical device market plays a key role in 3 out of 4 of these categories. GlobalData estimates that the global IVD market currently exceeds $48.08bn and is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.94% to reach $63bn by 2025. The use of IVD devices is an important component of prenatal family planning, antenatal care and the diagnosis and screening of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, and Hepatitis.”

Amongst noncommunicable diseases, WHO lists cervical cancer screening as a priority, which is performed via either cervical cytology or human papillomavirus (HPV) tests. Upcoming changes in government policies, that incorporate HPV tests into cervical cancer and pre-cancer screening, are expected to improve coverage and thus UHC in Europe over the next decade. As such, the overall market value for HPV medical device sales in Europe is expected to increase from $57.85m to $136.37m, growing at a CAGR of 8.95%.

Casey adds: “In many countries coverage for cervical cancer screening is currently sub-optimal. In addition to having a strong, positive impact on the European HPV tests market, it is hoped that these new HPV screening strategies will also enable better prevention of the disease. This is due to the fact that HPV testing devices are highly sensitive and allow for increased screening intervals. As such, adoption of this newer technology takes us one step closer to achieving WHO’s goal of UHC in Europe.”