Introducing EbolaCheck: potential for point-of-need infectious disease diagnosis

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Ebola
• molecular diagnostics
• non-profit
• nucleic acid testing
• point of care
• portable

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was funded by grant no. 13335 of the Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme managed by ELRHA, funded equally by the Wellcome Trust and DFID. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.