Rapid Test For Ebola Now Available

sciencehabit writes: The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved the first rapid diagnostic test for Ebola. The test needs no electricity, requires just a few drops of blood from a finger prick, and can return results in 15 minutes. That will be a huge help to health workers in remote areas. Current PCR-based tests require a blood sample taken by needle, secure transport of the blood to a properly equipped laboratory with trained staff, and at least several hours to return results. Depending on how far away a suspected case is from a testing laboratory, it can take more than a day to receive test results.

Of course

[KamikazeSquid]

Now that Ebola is actually a threat to rich white people living in developed nations, we can expect that new treatments will be created soon.

Re:Of course

[afidel]

Yeah, or maybe it's because this outbreak killed more people than all previous outbreaks combined. For example this report [who.int] from 2003 lists 128 total deaths in a remote area of the Congo, at the peak of this outbreak there were more people than that dying per day in Sierra Leone. It's pretty understandable that you don't spend billions on research and development for a drug that might be used on 40 people per year on average but would on a drug that can stop a global pandemic.

Re:

[geantvert]

You are a genius

Re:Of course

[Mr D from 63]

Now that Ebola is actually a threat to rich white people living in developed nations, we can expect that new treatments will be created soon.

And if there were no developed nations or rich people, we would more likely have new treatments?

Re:

[KamikazeSquid]

What's your argument? That it's okay to withhold medical care and resources from those who can't pay for them, because they've been systematically disadvantaged and exploited by people from developed nations who invaded their lands and stripped them of all their natural resources?

Re:

[Mr D from 63]

No, thats not my point but appears to be yours. My point is that you are vilifying the only entities that are providing the solutions, and the system that enables them to be deployed, albeit not on your time schedule. But, it seems you have a vision in mind of a world where things like priorities and trade offs don't come into play.

Re:

[KamikazeSquid]

My point is that the entities providing the solutions only start providing the solutions when there is a threat to their own constituents. If Ebola was still a disease that primarily threatened developing nations, there would be less attention paid to it.

You seem to have no problem with that, but it's not really clear why you have no problem with that based on your comments.

Re:

[niftymitch]

Now that Ebola is actually a threat to rich white people living in developed nations, we can expect that new treatments will be created soon.

Not so much me thinks.

A test and or a tester is very different than a cure or immunization for Ebola.
The ability to further screen someone identified by a remote non touch fever
sensor is the gold here.

Hospitals had issues sorting 80 some common infections that presented like Ebola.
The only unique Q&A answer that identified Ebola as a likely infection was "did you travel to _Africa_?".

Should Ebola have surfaced with a vengeance in one or more modern cities the options that
health departments have are few

Re:

[sribe]

Now that Ebola is actually a threat to rich white people living in developed nations, we can expect that new treatments will be created soon.

Treatments were under development long before this outbreak. But of course, when they become available, you'll just assume that development started after the first cases in the US and Europe.

Re:

[KamikazeSquid]

Citation needed.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: More Money For Uncle Sam

[O('_')O_Bush]

You gave a "list price" of $15 for a product that, for all you know (and given medicine pricing, like does) costs $0.10 to produce, and your issue is the $0.35 tax?

Re:

[hey!]

You do know what an excise tax is? It doesn't get charged on goods being *exported*. So you can stop worrying about Africa, if in fact you ever were.

My own rapid test...

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

Are you bleeding from your eyeballs? Well, you might have Ebola.

Tada!

Re:

[tlambert]

or just watched "keeping up with the kardashians"...

The differential diagnosis: If you are also bleeding from your ears, it was the Kardashians.

Re:

[hey!]

Here's what I'm guessing: in practical terms the test in question won't tell you any more than your bleeding eyeball test would, if we're talking about people with obvious hemorrhagic fever symptoms who have recently spent time in an Ebola hot zone.

The reason that something like this is needed is that *early* symptoms of Ebola are pretty much identical to influenza or any number of other viral illnesses. So you have someone coming from Liberia with the flu, you give them the quick finger stick test and send

Re:

[geantvert]

Don't worry. I don't know you but I also feel that I hate you.

Impressed

[Ethan Bernard]

Assuming they were motivated by the recent epidemic, they created this marketable test in ~ 6 months. Bravo.