Cygnus improves on LFTs to detect Dengue Fever

Working with academics and clinicians in Thailand, the team from Reading University trialled the tests alongside already established alternatives, and found the new tests showed 82 per cent clinical sensitivity, beating lateral flow testing (74 per cent sensitivity) and matching hospital-based lab diagnostics (83 per cent sensitivity). These devices can make 10 measurements simultaneously, allowing the identification of the specific dengue virus that caused the infection. The team’s results are published inPLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Lead author Dr Sarah Needs, a postdoctoral research associate in microfluidic antimicrobial resistance testing at Reading University, said: “The paper shows exciting potential for the use of the microfluidic ‘lab on a strip’ tests that can used in conjunction with a smartphone and are more powerful than LFT testing in this case. As well as being cheap to produce, the lab on a strip technology allows users to test many different targets at once in one single sample, so it could be useful to detect multiple diseases not just one.”