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Despite Regulatory Nod, Cheap Ebola Test Still Undeployed

Posted by timothy on from the but-we-can-pay-in-2017-dollars dept.

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.

2 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Operating in Africa by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Overcoming tribal belief sets, sometimes even nationwide backwater thinking, is one of the key obstacles to stemming the flow of disease on the African continent.

    There is an inherent mistrust of outsiders that has been compounded by centuries of bad behavior by folks who look just like the people who are just here to help you.

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

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  2. overcoming backwater thinking by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Combined with IV vitamin C, a powerful viricide, this test could protect world borders. Maimstream medicine never supports tests of IV vitamin C to treat viruses, not since the 1930-40s. Intravenous vitamin C is a great general viricide, extraordinarily successful in early or acute viral infections. Pity they don't use it on Ebola. Read this book online, Injectable Vitamin C by Robert McCracken, PhD, to see what I mean. Also see "Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins" by Thomas Levy, MD (Introduction).

    The life you save may be your own.