An innovative research and development proposal by Translational Health
Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) of India is likely to be one of
the few projects to be selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO)
for funding and thereby addressing the diseases affecting the developing
countries.
This is one of the eight proposals shortlisted for
the final selection by the WHO executive board in January and then
ratification by the World Health Assembly in May. The initiative is in
line with the decision by the Assembly in May this year to 'facilitate
the implementation of a few health research and development
demonstration projects to address identified gaps that
disproportionately affect developing countries, particularly the poor,
and for which immediate action can be taken'.
The global
technical consultative meeting recently selected eight proposals from 22
submitted by different countries. The Indian proposal selected is about
‘Multiplexed Point-of-Care test for acute febrile illness,’ sources at
THSTI said here.
Acute fever or acute febrile illness (a rapid
onset of fever and symptoms such as headache, chills or muscle and joint
pains) is common in the tropics and sub-tropics and can be caused by
very diverse pathogens.
“We have decided to use simple field
deployable lateral flow formats, which with some innovation, can be used
for the generation of multiplex test for at least five to six major
high-burden pathogens responsible for AFI in tropical and subtropical
regions of the world especially SEARO region,” said the proposal.
“Based
on literature search, infectious diseases which cause major burden of
AFI and also amenable to multiplexing include malaria, dengue, typhoid/
paratyphoid, chikungunya, leptospirosis and scrub typhus. These are the
diseases that are proposed to be targeted by multiplex POCT. Despite the
strong need, no multiplex POCT is available in market which can be used
in resource limited settings for the detection of multiple etiologies
of AFI. Although, individual (singleplex) POCTs for the chosen
infections are commercially available, most of these tests are of poor
quality,” it said.
The POCTs for infectious diseases developed in
developed countries are often imported by developing countries but
these tests are generally very expensive and also do not perform to the
mark in the developing countries, according to the proposal.
Evaluation
of assay using clinical samples from developing world/SEARO region is
prerequisite as regional background must be determined to tune the
cut-off value. The whole project will be guided by the WHO, and THSTI,
India will play role of coordinator (nodal point) for this project.
