Introducing EbolaCheck: potential for point-of-need infectious disease diagnosis.
The 2013-2015 Ebolavirus disease humanitarian crisis has spurred the development of laboratory-free, point-of-care nucleic acid testing solutions. EbolaCheck is an international consortium of public health, academic and biotechnology industry stakeholders aiming to deliver clinical molecular diagnostic standard-of-care testing suitable for the West African milieu within 12 months. In this article, the current status of the EbolaCheck platform is discussed in the context of the current regulatory framework. Presented here are future goals to achieve differential diagnosis of hemorrhagic fever disease from <5-μl of whole blood samples or mucosal biofluids, in a single tube process, under 40 min and with minimal operator training requirements.
a Department of Biomedical Sciences, Westminster Genomic Services, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Westminster, London, UK.
Sterghios Athanasios
SA
Moschos
D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / Q000191:economics; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems / Q000191:economics*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059039:Standard of Care
Ebola; molecular diagnostics; non-profit; nucleic acid testing; point of care; portable