Manufacture of diagnostic kit for sleeping sickness in the DRC supported by FIND
Technician assembling minicolumns in refurbished INRB laboratory
The early symptoms of sleeping sickness, or human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), are very similar to a flu. You start
by having a headache, accompanied by joint pains and fever. You hope it will go away quickly. Yet ultimately things worsen
and you begin to fall asleep at odd times, start to feel confused and as time goes by you succumb to convulsions
accompanied by more pain. Sleeping sickness, if not properly diagnosed and treated, leads to a wasting away that results
in coma and death. This is why it is important to develop sensitive tools for early detection of the parasite
responsible for this terrible disease.
Thus far, the most sensitive method for detecting sleeping sickness parasites
in blood is the mini Anion Exchange Centrifugation Technique, or mAECT, which involves separating trypanosomes
from venous blood using minicolumns by anion exchange chromatography. These are then concentrated at the bottom of
a glass tube by low-speed centrifugation, and examined under a microscope. Although the mAECT still requires further
improvements, it increases the chances for cases to be detected early, when treatment is safer and cheaper, resulting
in reduced morbidity and fewer patients going undiagnosed.
Since 2006, when FIND initiated collaboration with the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp and
the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in Kinshasa, DRC, we have made tremendous progress
at improving the capacity of INRB to manufacture the mAECT kit. Our support has included refurbishment of the laboratory
for a new manufacturing line of minicolumns (one of the components of the mAECT kit), providing training for technicians,
setting up a manufacturing quality control process, and review of costs to guarantee sustainability of production.
The INRB has over the past year been marketing and distributing mAECT in the DRC, the country most severely affected
by sleeping sickness, and to other endemic regions on the continent.
Achievements
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