France’s Atomic Energy Commission, CEA, on Tuesday announced its invention of a new device which could enable health workers diagnose a patient with suspected Ebola within 15 minutes. It likened the new test-instrument to a simple pregnancy home-test.
The French developers, in a statement, noted that trials at a high-security lab have validated the technique, even as they promised that prototype kits should be available in Ebola-hit countries by the end of October for a clinical trial.
The statement has it that the diagnostic tool, yet to be approved by regulators, works by monoclonal antibodies reacting to the presence of virus in a tiny sample, which can be a drop of blood, plasma or urine.
It held that just like a DIY pregnancy test, a positive result displays a small stripe which shows up in a results window on the hand-held device. An European pharma company,
Vedalab, is turning it into a user-friendly kit called Ebola eZYSCREEN.
According to the CEA, the kit is simple to use in the field without any additional equipment.
The statement reads, “It can give a result in less than 15 minutes for anyone showing symptoms of the disease.
“Current tests, which are based on genetic detection of the virus, are highly sensitive but need special equipment, take between two and a quarter and two and a half hours and can only be carried out in a lab,” the CEA explained.
Scientists at the agency began working on the diagnostic tool in mid-August, when the epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone worsened. The test is for the so-called Zaire ebola virus, the strain now circulating in West Africa.
The feat is an improvement on previous Ebola research funded in part by the French defence ministry as part of its anti-bioterrorism programme.
The CEA said the research had “saved more than a year” in development time of the diagnostic test.
It is widely reported that the Ebola Virus Disease has so far claimed the lives of about 4,500 people this year and almost and majority of the casualties were recorded in West Africa.
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