Institut Pasteur de Dakar: Detecting Ebola at the Last Mile

Ebola virus disease has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the short term, our consortium plans to optimise, manufacture, and validate a novel Ebola rapid diagnostic test (RDT) for deployment at the point of need — that is low cost and high performance. A simple, 5 minute, high performance test, that complements complex laboratory tools, is urgently needed to ensure earliest possible detection of Ebola in the heart of communities experiencing an outbreak. Successful deployment will lead to an optimised and evaluated device for manufacture to support the current outbreak in DRC, surveillance in neighbouring regions, and in time post-DRC outbreak surveillance. In the long term, we envision substantial impact generated by establishing a new model for sustainable delivery of high performance outbreak diagnostics, deployed at the point of need. Accordingly, diaTropix - a new manufacturing facility dedicated to epidemics and neglected diseases in Dakar, Senegal - will be set up with the capability, expertise, and reagents to produce rapid diagnostics responsively to evolving outbreaks — with Ebola demonstrating proof of concept and feasibility, and a portfolio of rapid diagnostics in the pipeline for dengue, yellow fever, measles, and malaria.

Programme: DFID-Wellcome Epidemic Preparedness Grant

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