Recent advances in near-to-patient rapid diagnostic assays in clinical virology

Prof John Tam

Department of Microbiology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong

Until recently, the diagnosis of viral infections was considered as retrospective or for studies on the epidemiology of viral infections only and is of little clinical impact to patient management. However the recent advances in the development of rapid diagnostic procedures have enabled the diagnosis of viral infections to be made within one hour. Such near-to-patient assays allowed meaningful management such as antiviral chemotherapy to be institute in time for treatment of the acute illness. In addition, urgent testing for viruses for the purpose of organ transplantation and other infection control measures in outbreak situations underscored the importance of such rapid assay systems.

In the present presentation, the requirements for near-to-patient diagnostic tests and the current available methods are outlined. Results on the evaluation of such assays for hepatitis B and HIV screening are presented. Further development and current issues of near-to-patient testing are discussed.


Copyright 1997 Hong Kong Medical Technology Association .
All rights reserved.