Inuit organizations have led the way to much faster detection of tuberculosis in Nunavut, using a rapid molecular test recommended by the World Health Organization for TB-endemic areas internationally. Serendipitously, the new technology also made it possible for COVID testing to be done within Nunavut during the pandemic.

Experts call this “reverse innovation” – using healthcare practices and technologies from the Global South in the Global North. “What we’re now starting to discover is that there is a very rich pipeline, especially of affordable innovation, that’s coming from the developing world,” Dr. Peter Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada, told the National Post in 2014.

Part of that reverse innovation has involved identifying at least two frugal and practical solutions that can be applied to health care in Nunavut – the GeneXpert/Xpert® MTB/RIF test for TB that WHO endorsed for TB-endemic countries in 2010, and a much faster test for childhood diarrhea developed in Botswana by David Goldfarb using funding from Grand Challenges Canada that can also be used in Nunavut.