Current and Future Diagnostic Tests for Ebola Virus Disease

Abstract

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a major public health concern with a high mortality rate in infected individuals. Outbreaks of Ebola have been widespread-there is no rapid, sensitive, specific, and affordable diagnostic test for the virus, nor there is any treatment for the disease. Overlapping symptoms of other endemic diseases, such as malaria and cholera, make it difficult to diagnose EVD. For clinical management, outbreak investigation, and proper surveillance, EVD requires a detection system, which should be fast, sensitive, specific, efficient, affordable, and user-friendly with in-country staff. In this review, we discuss the current diagnostics available for Ebola screening, along with the limitations and key improvements necessary for a more robust system to facilitate efficient management in case of another major outbreak.

<p>The Use of Near-Infrared Light-Emitting Fluorescent Nanodiamond Particles to Detect Ebola Virus Glycoprotein: Technology Development and Proof of Principle</p>

“…This objective is rooted in the desire to develop a new reporter system that offers better sensitivity, quantitation, speed, efficiency, and point-of-test data transmission. The need for significantly improved sensitivity of diagnostic test for highly infectious, lethal viruses, was already stressed during the devastating EBOV epidemic of 2014–2016 in West Africa 31 – 33 and endemic outbreaks thereafter. 34 , 35 The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the latest example of the need for highly sensitive rapid diagnostic tests to enable early, robust responses to epidemic and pandemic risks, including identification of pre-symptomatic individuals who are considered infectious.…”

“…lethal viruses, was already stressed during the devastating EBOV epidemic of 2014-2016 in West Africa [31][32][33] and endemic outbreaks thereafter. 34,35 The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the latest example of the need for highly sensitive rapid diagnostic tests to enable early, robust responses to epidemic and pandemic risks, including identification of presymptomatic individuals who are considered infectious.…”

EBOLA Ag K-SeT rapid test: field evaluation in Sierra Leone

“…The experience in Western Africa has led to extensive research promoting the development of new diagnostic tools. However, although some novel assays have already proved useful in the context of a recent outbreak in DRC (http://www.who.int/emergencies/Ebola-DRC-2017), new reliable diagnostic tests, especially at the point of care, are still needed to rapidly identify and isolate patients for prompt epidemic control [16,19,20]. This study aimed to evaluate in a field settings a new RDT, EBOLA Ag K-SeT, using EBOV-positive and -negative residual clinical samples collected during the outbreak in Sierra Leone.…”

“…Because of its abundance in the infected host cells, VP40 results are a good candidate for developing antigen detection assays [16]. EBOLA Ag K-SeT is designed to test blood, plasma and serum samples.…”

Study of Contribution of Chemical and Physical Properties of Molecules towards Their Activities against Ebola Virus Using Data Mining Techniques

“…Healthy people can be infected with Ebola virus if come into contact with body fluids from infected patients such as blood, saliva, sweat, urine, semen, vomit, mucus, vaginal fluids, including feces [1], [3], [10]. Incubation time of the disease ranges from 2 days to 3 weeks [10].…”