For millions of people in Central Africa become infected with microscopic worm Loa loa is not big deal: just a little itching and swelling. But if they take an ivermectin-dose medication that is widely distributed across the continent in an attempt to eliminate other parasites- L. loa can cause more serious complications: bleeding problems neurological, and even death. Now, for the first time, scientists have developed a prototype for a handheld platform, for mobile phone screen L. loa in minutes that could help health workers who decide can safely receive the drug.
"This is a remarkable achievement," said the physician and public health researcher Adrian Hopkins, Director of the Mectizan Donation strength Group Global Health Program in Decatur, Georgia, who was not involved in the new job. To be widely used throughout Central Africa, however, he said, the device will be marketed and optimized cost.
L. loa infections, or Loa loa are transmitted by mosquitoes and flies that carry L. loa larvae. in human flesh, the larvae turn into worms about as long as a strand of hair is wide. These tiny parasites adults then dig into the skin, lungs, bloodstreams, and people's eyes. (the disease is also known as worm African eye because of the occasional stray wandering through the eyes of someone, visible from outside.) so far, loiasis diagnosis was difficult, especially because the symptoms can be so subtle.
"is screening, but it is a long tedious business," says Hopkins. The number of tiny worms in a blood sample must be manually counted by a qualified technician, he said, to determine where to enough to cause severe ivermectin reaction. "There is no way you could go into a village and do it on everyone." For programs like his, which oversees the administration of hundreds of millions of Mectizan (ivermectin) doses per year in Africa to treat river blindness and elephantiasis, both caused by parasitic worms that is a problem, due to strange interactions and evil between ivermectin and loiasis.
researchers had already tried developing ways to test blood for L. loa antibody or stain L. loa parasites for easy identification under a microscope but techniques have never been quick, cheap and quite effective.
bioengineer Daniel Fletcher of the University of California, Berkeley, wondered if an automated computer program could instead to detect in blood samples by detecting their revealing squirming. "It was really an effort to make it as simple and quick as possible," he said.
group used the CellScope Fletcher, a microscopy platform based on a mobile phone they had developed for displaying samples L. loa- infected blood. the CellScope device slides over the exterior of an iPhone as an oversized phone case and has a slot on one side for thin slides of blood samples. once it is installed, the light shines on iPhone the blood sample and a microscope aligned against the phone's camera helps to magnify. to L. loa , the Fletcher team then created software that, by analyzing 5-second video recorded through the microscope could detect twisting motion and calculate the concentration of parasites in the blood. Rather than identifying and count each worm, the program highlights their presence by the slight shift of blood cells when to wiggle them.
When the researchers used new technology to screen 33 patients in Cameroon L. loa , the so-called CellScope Loa churned results similar to those of the more tedious manual testing, with a false negative rate estimated at less than one in 10 million patients, but in less than 2 minutes, reports the team today science Translational Medicine . "The great thing about this is that you just get the blood test result," says Hopkins. "You can also geo-reference where the patient is and assign them a number, so you get a much more detailed records than ever we could just go into a village and write it on a piece of paper."
Fletcher admits to CellScope Loa to apply to millions of people in Africa who need treatment of ivermectin, the lab must first understand how to scale technology; currently, they are assembling each range by hand in the laboratory. Get industry aid could also be a challenge, he said. "It is difficult to encourage companies to make devices whose purpose is precisely to eventually eliminate the need for the device."
0 Komentar