Biosensors as rapid diagnostic tests for tropical diseases

Abstract

Effective diagnosis of infectious pathogens is essential for disease identification and subsequent adequate treatment, to prevent drug resistance and to adopt suitable public health interventions for the prevention and control of epidemic outbreaks. Particular situations under which medical diagnostics operate in tropical environments make the use of new easy-to-use diagnostic tools the preferred (or even unique) option. These diagnostic tests and devices, usually based on biosensing methods, are being increasingly exploited as promising alternatives to classical, "heavy" lab instrumentation for clinical diagnosis, allowing simple, inexpensive and point-of-care testing. However, in many developing countries the lack of accessibility and affordability for many commercial diagnostic tests remains a major cause of high disease burden in such regions. We present a comprehensive overview about the problems of conventional medical diagnosis of infectious pathologies in tropical regions, while pointing out new methods and analytical tools for in-the-field and decentralized diagnosis of current major infectious tropical diseases. The review includes not only biosensor-based rapid diagnostic tests approved by regulatory entities and already commercialized, but also those at the early stages of research.

Diagnosing dengue virus infection: rapid tests and the role of micro/nanotechnologies

“…78 Recent advances in bioelectronics have generated new techniques for detection of dengue antibodies and RNA, based on biosensor technology. Three recently reported methodologies and devices (quartz crystal microbalance, surface plasmon resonance, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) for detection and identification of specific biomolecules related to dengue virus are described here.…”

“…78 from important pathogens, including arboviruses, was developed for the detection and genetic analysis of dengue, West Nile, and Chikungunya viruses in spiked blood samples or sera from dengue patients. 105 The test proved effective for rapid identification and genetic analysis of these three viruses, rendering this technique particularly appropriate in emergency case.…”

Diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis: developments over the last decade

“…Biosensors are usually designed to be highly selective, sensitive, fast, portable, easy-to-operate, reusable, cheap, and, in general, response-proportional. Many commercial biosensors rely on dipstick or immunochromatographic formats, very suitable for single-case diagnosis in field applications (Rodrigues Ribeiro Teles et al 2010;Teles 2011). Recently, the applicability of nano-structured nickel oxide-based DNA biosensors was established for detection of VL (Mohan et al 2011).…”

Novel Molecular Diagnostic Platform for Tropical Infectious Diseases

“…To provide patients with effective medical treatment and prevent the spread of diseases and emergence of drug-resistant strains, quick and reliable diagnostic techniques are in high demand. However, lack of accessibility to such diagnostic systems has resulted in the deterioration of the situation in most developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan tropical countries (Rodrigues et al, 2010). Diagnostics using molecular technologies have emerged as a promising methodology because of their remarkable high sensitivity, and therefore, they have been applied as diagnostic tools for detecting various kinds of pathogens in clinical settings in developed countries.…”