Want to know if you’ve contracted dengue, chikungunya or Zika in just two hours? Sure, with this made-in-Singapore kit.
Zika test in Singapore: Home-grown!
This kit, designed by Singaporean scientists has attracted interest from other countries and even the World Health Organisation (WHO). Costing only a few dollars, only requires a blood or urine sample from the patient. The kit will then extract the genetic material of the virus to find out what the virus is.
The detection process takes two hours, time will be reduced if each of the viruses were to be tested for individually.
Dr. Masafumi Inoue, a senior research scientist at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*Star) Experimental Therapeutics Centre who is part of the team that developed the kit mentioned that the kit is among others that the WHO is interested in testing.
He is currently compiling clinical data from the health authority before sending the kit over for testing.
If the test is successful, the kit will be used by the WHO to test for the viruses.
“It is important to quickly distinguish between the three major (and prevalent) mosquito-borne viruses here… This will not only lessen the mental stress on the patient and give the patient peace of mind, but also ensure that he or she can receive the appropriate sort of treatment and care without delay,” said Dr Inoue.
While a similar kit has been developed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is not readily available here, he added.
Dr Inoue and Dr Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, senior principal investigator at A*Star’s Bioinformatics Institute, decided to work with Tan Tock Seng Hospital on this project when Brazil had been hit badly by the surge in Zika cases six months ago.
“We anticipated that it was a matter of time before the Zika virus would affect Singapore,” said Dr Inoue.
Dr Inoue and his team hope to expand the scope of the kit to include other viruses that, together with Zika, could cause microcephaly.
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Source: The Straits Times