Infectious diseases at sea can pose severe problems, not only for the crewmember or passenger affected, but also for others aboard, for ship operations, and for port health clearance. Point of care (POC) testing has the potential to improve the speed and reliability of diagnosis and hence for treatment and outbreak control. The study by Bouricha and colleagues in this issue1 provides evidence of the practicality of using such tests on board a ship as well as noting the need for modifications to POC equipment to make it sufficiently robust for maritime use. The authors couple the use of POC testing with a simple syndromic (signs and symptoms based) system to help decide if testing is indicated. They indicate, from evidence in other settings, the potential benefits of such testing, but the small number of tests performed in this study means that the benefits of adoption of such test methods at sea cannot readily be evaluated. More studies are clearly needed to provide answers on the cost … Corresponding Author: John Timothy Carter, PhD, Department of Occupational Medicine, Norwegian Centre for Maritime Medicine, Bergen, Norway. E‐mail: tim.sea{at}doctors.org.uk