Ebola Virus: Modern Approaches for developing bedside Rapid Diagnostics – Sofia ref.: 115843

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The current Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak has caused more than 5000 deaths within a few months in West Africa (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia being the most severely affected countries), including numerous healthcare workers. It is now is serious public health crisis of international concern . The numbers of cases are still increasing 11 months after the first case was described (December 2013), by mid November 2014 approximately 15000 individuals have been infected and the epidemic is still not under control The direct effects of this outbreak include disruption of standard medical care, insecurity and social disruption in countries that were already struggling to recover from decades of war. One of the most important key actions to limit and stop the spread of this deadly disease is to identify and isolate the EBOV-infected patients. The diagnosis of Ebola Virus infections has in the past, been performed overwhelmingly in specialist reference laboratories with high-performance molecular, serological and culture methods.In recent years many of these functions have been mobilised into rapid response mobile laboratories, indeed several of these units supported by, European, CDC/USA, Canadian, Chinese and African states have been set up to help in the current outbreak by performing laboratory diagnosis, in collaboration with national centres in West Africa. While this type of response has been effective in helping control past EVD outbreaks in rural parts of Africa, it has not been as effective at controlling the current outbreak which is now spreading in densely populated city and slum areas. Unfortunately, the diagnostic procedures currently used in the mobile laboratories are associated with several problems: i) there are a limited number of diagnostic hubs, ii) performing the diagnostic tests correctly requires specialist training, skill and experience, consequently there a limited numbers of trained staff