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Point-of-care test differentiates Ebola from similar diseases in 30 minutes
Researchers have developed a 30-minute, portable diagnostic test that distinguishes Ebola virus infections from other endemic diseases with similar initial symptoms, such as Lassa fever virus and malaria, according to study results recently published in Science Translational Medicine.
“One challenge in diagnosing Ebola and other infectious diseases with similar symptoms is the lack of an easy test to identify people infected with these conditions that can be used in the field,” said John H. Connor, PhD, an associate professor of microbiology at Boston University School of Medicine, according to an interview transcript released by Science Translational Medicine. “This challenge was very evident during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, where a diagnosis of Ebola infection could take days because diagnostic testing could not easily be implemented at the point of need.”
The West African Ebola epidemic — the largest in history — infected more than 28,000 people and killed more than 11,300.
“Empirical diagnosis based on clinical symptoms (for example, fever) is the most frequently used diagnostic tool in low-resource settings but is not very discriminatory in locations with a high incidence of malaria and regular occurrence of Lassa fever virus, and therefore, diagnosis of [Ebola virus] during the outbreak was primarily performed using a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay,” Connor and colleagues wrote.
They noted that because of the infrastructure and training required to accurately run the RT-PCR assay, its deployment and impact are limited.
They developed a diagnostic tool that uses surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) tags to simultaneously detect antigens from Ebola, Lassa and malaria using a single blood sample. Results are obtained in less than 30 minutes for both individual and batched samples, they said.
The researchers first tested the device using monkey models. They then tested 586 clinical specimens from Senegal and Guinea. They determined a sensitivity of 90% and specificity of 97.9% for Ebola detection and 100% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity for malaria detection.
“These results, along with corresponding live virus and nonhuman primate testing of an Ebola, Lassa and malaria 3-plex assay, indicate the potential of the SERS technology as an important tool for outbreak detection and clinical triage in low-resource settings,” the researchers concluded. – by Bruce Thiel
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.