A new test should enable doctors to diagnose patients with Ebola within minutes, it was announced yesterday.
Researchers said the new rapid diagnostic test is as sensitive as existing laboratory testing – and may even be better.
Details of the discovery were reported in The Lancet.
Trials have taken place in Sierra Leone. Some 105 patients gave finger-prick blood samples and the findings of the rapid test were compared with laboratory results.
Another 277 comparisons were made in laboratory conditions.
In all cases the rapid test identified Ebola infections later confirmed in the laboratory.
It also identified a small number of mild infections not spotted by the laboratory testing.
Researcher Dr Nira Pollock, of the Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts, USA, said: "Laboratory results can sometimes take days to return. Delays like this result not only in the failure to diagnose and treat Ebola-infected patients, but also in individuals without Ebola being admitted to holding units where they may be subsequently infected with the virus.
"This new test, on the other hand, is capable of detecting the Ebola virus in just a small drop of blood tested at the bedside, and could help us in the fight against Ebola."
Lancet 25 June 2015 [abstract]
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