A single-use molecular test for flu and RSV, no bigger than a pregnancy test, now matches the accuracy of hospital lab machines. Current rapid tests for these respiratory infections are cheap and convenient but miss many cases, while lab tests that detect viral genetic material are highly accurate but require expensive equipment and centralised facilities. This gap means patients often receive antibiotics they do not need, or miss out on antiviral drugs when they would be most effective. The new device brings gold-standard molecular detection into a disposable format that can be used in GP surgeries, nursing homes, or hospital wards without any extra instruments. If the test works at scale, it could cut unnecessary antibiotic use, reduce hospitalisations, and lower healthcare costs by giving clinicians a reliable result within minutes rather than days. It would also allow faster infection control decisions in care homes and hospitals, where respiratory viruses spread quickly among vulnerable patients. The technology is designed to be adaptable for other pathogens, potentially broadening its impact beyond flu and RSV.
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Infections that affect patients breathing, such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), cause over 6 million hospital admissions and c.700,000 deaths globally each year. They particularly impact over 65s, under 5s and patients with chronic disease, e.g. COPD. There is an important need to improve the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory illnesses, including permitting antiviral drugs to be used when they are most effective and cutting the use of antibiotics when they are not required. Laboratory diagnostic tests for influenza and RSV which detect the genetic material of the viruses are very accurate but need complex equipment, which necessitates a central testing location and the associated operating systems which add costs and cause delays. Rapid point-of-care tests, similar to a pregnancy test, are available for influenza and RSV and have been used in the USA since the early 1990s. They are cheap and convenient but miss many cases of infection and are unreliable. We have developed a single-use molecular test device that brings the gold standard performance of laboratory machine tests into a rapid, disposable, point-of-care test format. The product is highly flexible and may be readily adopted outside of central laboratories. The benefits of our test include improved treatment of patients, fewer hospitalisations, better use of antibiotics, fewer deaths and significantly lower overall healthcare costs. Future use by hospitals, GPs and nursing homes would also enable more effective infection prevention and control.
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