Redeemer’s University Develops Lassa Fever Test Kit

THE Redeemer’s University (RUN), Ede, Osun State, has developed a Lassa fever Rapid Diagnostics Test (RDT), for quick diagnosis of the scourge as part of efforts to contain the spread of the deadly disease.

The discovery, which is one of the many breakthroughs of the institution’s African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infection Diseases (ACEGID), according to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Debo Adeyewa can be used to detect Lassa Fever in the blood sample of both living and dead bodies within 10 minutes.

He disclosed that efforts are also ongoing, in the area of Lassa Fever vaccine development, adding that through the generation sequencing approach, it has identified a signal of natural selection in the human gene called ‘Large’ among the Yoruba people of South West Nigeria that may be associated with the protection to the virus.

The Director of the Centre, Prof. Christian Happi, who was a member of a team that performed the first Lassa fever PCR-based diagnosis in Nigeria in 2008, 39 years after the virus was first discovered in the country, said they developed another diagnostics in 2014, which showed great potential, but its’ sensitivity was low compared to the gold standard PCR.

According to Happi the difference is because the test could not pick up all the three lineages of the virus circulating in Nigeria.

He said: “We went back to work to improve on the RDTs and in January 2016, we successfully developed a Pan-Lassa fever test that is highly sensitive and specific. A prototype has been produced.”

He noted that it is well established that Ribavirin that is currently used to treat the fever was not designed for the disease and as such, it is only effective when given in the early phase of the infection.

“This prompted us to take advantage of our current knowledge of genomics technology to have better insight into the virus genome and eventually identify potential drug target.

“The Lassa Fever virus originated from present day Nigeria 1,060 years ago and spread out of Nigeria 400 years ago to other West African countries. A comparison between Lassa Fever and Ebola viruses showed that the Lassa Fever virus is less adapted and efficient for human-to-human transmission, unlike the Ebola virus.”