Rapid Response Testing Systems: little laboratories “to take away”

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A rapid assesement of the most significant risks is crucial for he safety of affected populations in emergencies and crisis scenarios Portable Rapid Testing Systems are extremely useful for laboratory analyses in many different circumstances: from diagnosis of infectious diseases to analysis of drinking water quality. Such testing remains a significant challenge where resources are limited.

Several methods for clinical detection have been developed recently to face these challenges, mostly bases on antigen detection: Crystal VC® dipstick rapid test for cholera, Rapid DiagnosticTest for malaria, ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test Kit for Ebola diagnosis. Some have innovate detection by nucleic acid amplification like Diagnostics-in-a-Suitcase, which contains all reagents and equipment to detect the Ebola virus within 15 minutes at point-of-need. Compared to most antigenic methods, nucleic acid amplification shows a higher level of sensitivity and specificity.

With regard to water quality testing there are many kits widely used for emergencies. An interesting summary of 44 water testing kit for low resources settings presents the variety of existing options[1]
. However, all of them analyze only fecal indicator bacteria based on membrane filtration systems (Kit DelAgua, Potatest, etc.) or chromogenic systems by substrate hydrolysis like Aquagenx. As far as we know, rapid kits for detecting viruses in water are not available, and at the present, viral contamination in water is tested in centralized laboratories using techniques based on the detection of viral nucleic acids with commercial kits or in-house tests. This requires well-established laboratories, transporting samples to often distant laboratories as well as fully trained personnel.

VirWaTest team is working on a portable kit for detection of viruses in water, which will be based on easy-to-use, nucleic acid detection foruse in the field in a crisis scenario. This kit will provide rapid diagnostic and assessment on the potential sources of transmission for human viruses (eg. Hepatitis E Virus outbreak).

[1], Bain R, Bartram J, Elliott M, Matthews R,
McMahan L, Tung R, Chuang P, Gundry S,

A summary catalogue of microbial drinking water tests for low and medium resource settings.
Int J Environ Res Public Health.
2012 May;9(5):1609-25. doi: 10.3390/ijerph9051609.