A single test for chlamydia, gonorrhoea, and other sexually transmitted infections could deliver results in 20 minutes, directly to a patient’s mobile phone. STIs are a serious health problem in the UK, especially among young people, and antibiotic resistance is making them harder to treat. Untreated infections can cause long-term harm, including reduced fertility. Current tests require sending samples to a lab and waiting days for results, which delays treatment and allows infections to spread. The eSTI2 consortium brings together micro-engineering, molecular biology, and telecommunications to develop rapid, self-administered tests that work like a pregnancy test. The device would link securely to a mobile phone, sending results directly to clinics so patients get treated quickly and can alert sexual partners. If successful, this could transform how STIs are managed in the NHS. Rapid diagnosis would cut transmission chains, reduce the burden on clinics, and give public health doctors real-time data on infection levels in the population. The consortium will test the devices in networks of UK clinics and labs, consult patients and doctors on how best to use them, and work with biotech companies to turn existing “gene chips” into a single multi-infection test.
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Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a serious health problem in the UK, particularly in young people and the Government have made tackling them an urgent priority. STIs are also becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, making treatment much more difficult. Untreated STIs cause serious long term consequences to those affected, such as reduced fertility. One way of improving the situation would be to use better tests that diagnose individuals in clinic, with results in 20 minutes or so, as opposed to sending samples away and waiting a few days. This allows doctors to provide immediate treatment, advice and to get patients to tell their sexual partners to get checked and treated. All this reduces the chances of spreading infection. This new consortium called eSTI2, (electronic self-testing instruments for sexually transmitted infections) aims to bring together recent scientific developments in micro-engineering, molecular biology and telecommunications, working in partnership with biotech companies to help develop new types of rapid tests for STIs. The tests could, for example, allow people to use them like a pregnancy test - ?a self-test? - and link their results to their mobile phones (safely and securely) and then electronically to clinics, so individuals can get treated quickly. This might also allow public health doctors to get a better measure of how much infection exists in the population. An important part of eSTI2 scientists? work will be to turn ?gene chips? in micro-devices (their own and those of biotech companies) into a single test that can detect many different STIs at once. eSTI2 also aims to support getting the best tests introduced into the NHS as quickly as possible. eSTI2 will set up networks of STI clinics and microbiology labs across the UK, to test how well the devices work with real life patients and get the devices properly approved. It will consult a range of people all likely to be affected by the tests, for example patients and doctors, about the best way to use them. It will also try to find the best way to combine the use of mobile phones and rapid STI tests in the community, most effectively.
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