Despite Regulatory Nod, Cheap Ebola Test Still Undeployed

According to an article in Nature, the researchers who developed an inexpensive, reliable field test for the Ebola virus are frustrated by the delay they've seen in actually having that test deployed. Known as the Corgenix test after the company which developed it, this diagnostic tool "could not replace lab confirmation, but it would allow workers to identify infected people and isolate them faster, greatly reducing the spread of disease," according to infectious-diseases physician Nahid Bhadelia. However, though it's been approved both by the US FDA (for emergency use) and the World Health Organization, its practical use has been hampered by country-level regulations. Just why is unclear; the test seems to be at least as effective as other typical tests, and in some ways better. One concern was that the test might fail to detect the virus in some cases of Ebola. But the independent field-validation1 (in Sierra Leone) shows that the kit was as sensitive at catching cases as the gold-standard comparison — a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test that amplifies and detects genetic sequences that are specific to Ebola in blood and other bodily fluids.

Comments

Re:Operating in Africa

[sribe]

I suspect many tribal people would rather not be diagnosed at all.

Exactly. They have not grown up being educated as the causes of disease and its spread. During the outbreak, people were hiding sick relatives from aid workers because they observed that once your name was put on the list, you got taken away and died. Cause and effect in their minds, because they lack the knowledge to understand the real cause, and the likely outcomes of different actions. This is not a problem that can be solved overall in the midst of an epidemic--it's something that requires a generation or two of effective universal public education, which is a big project.

Re:Operating in Africa

[Immerman]

Probably also a generation or two of "we're here to help" medical programs not being hideously abused, as was done in various population-control endeavours and other programs. Involuntary sterilization under the guise of vaccinations? Really? That's the sort of horror story that can take generations to fade, and it seems like every time we start building back some trust among the population, someone decides to abuse it yet again.