Title |
Pilot testing of dipsticks as point-of-care assays for rapid diagnosis of poor-quality artemisinin drugs in endemic settings
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Published in |
Tropical Medicine and Health, May 2016
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DOI | 10.1186/s41182-016-0015-8 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Suqin Guo, Lishan He, Daniel J. Tisch, James Kazura, Sungano Mharakurwa, Jagadish Mahanta, Sócrates Herrera, Baomin Wang, Liwang Cui |
Abstract |
Good-quality artemisinin drugs are essential for malaria treatment, but increasing prevalence of poor-quality artemisinin drugs in many endemic countries hinders effective management of malaria cases. To develop a point-of-care assay for rapid identification of counterfeit and substandard artemisinin drugs for resource-limited areas, we used specific monoclonal antibodies against artesunate and artemether, and developed prototypes of lateral flow dipstick assays. In this pilot test, we evaluated the feasibility of these dipsticks under different endemic settings and their performance in the hands of untrained personnel. The results showed that the dipstick tests can be successfully performed by different investigators with the included instruction sheet. None of the artemether and artesunate drugs collected from public pharmacies in different endemic countries failed the test. It is possible that the simple dipstick assays, with future optimization of test conditions and sensitivity, can be used as a qualitative and semi-quantitative assay for rapid screening of counterfeit artemisinin drugs in endemic settings. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Unknown | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
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Members of the public | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Ghana | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 31 | 97% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Ph. D. Student | 5 | 16% |
Researcher | 5 | 16% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 3 | 9% |
Student > Master | 3 | 9% |
Lecturer | 2 | 6% |
Other | 7 | 22% |
Unknown | 7 | 22% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
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Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science | 6 | 19% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 4 | 13% |
Chemistry | 4 | 13% |
Nursing and Health Professions | 3 | 9% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 2 | 6% |
Other | 7 | 22% |
Unknown | 6 | 19% |