Dear All
I wonder if you might have time to contribute to the following questionnaire for the AfriDx research project?
Please feel free to forward to colleagues!
Jenny
Short Version
The AfriDx consortium is an EDCTP funded project developing locally-manufacturable molecular diagnostics for COVID-19 with partners in the UK, Denmark and Ghana. We are now reaching out to the community to gain further understanding of any barriers in the use of LAMP-based molecular diagnostics and their local manufacture and distribution. Whether you are a researcher, manufacturer, distributor, legislator, clinician or other professional or end user of diagnostics, we would welcome your input. Respond here by 10 Jan 2022 >>
Longer Explanation
Over the last 2 years, the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed many inequalities between rich and poor countries in providing a pathway for management and care of infection. AfriDx, a project funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) has been exploring whether the nucleic acid diagnostic, LAMP (loop mediated isothermal amplification) is an alternative to PCR, which could be better deployed in resource poor areas. In addition to the clinical trial, the aim of this project is to understand the limitations to developing local manufacturing of disease diagnostics in low income countries, using locally resourced materials.
We now have data on the use of LAMP in comparison with PCR and we have completed the first step to developing manufacturing processes for many of the core biological reagents in low resource environments. However, this is only part of the value chain that might bring robust and approved diagnostics to low resource areas. We are now reaching out to the community to gain further understanding of the barriers in the use of diagnostics and their local manufacture and distribution.
Whether you are a researcher, manufacturer, distributor, legislator, clinician or other professional or end user of diagnostics, we would welcome your input to this questionnaire: https://forms.gle/ynVtNxmmA5j9CLr49
Your input will be valuable in helping us with this project. Thank you for your time.
The AfriDx consortium:
- University of Cambridge
- Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR)
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST),
- Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR)
- Danish Technical University (DTU)
- Avoma Group