Technology zeroes in on bird flu

By Reuters

Published: November 7, 2005, 4:42 PM PST

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A new chip can test for 11 different influenza strains, including avian flu, in less than a quarter of the time it now takes to diagnose flu in patients, U.S. researchers said Monday.

The technology, devised at the University of Colorado, is still being validated, but the researchers hope to develop it into an on-the-spot test for influenza.

"If we could put this technology in every doctor's office, that would be fantastic," said Kathy Rowlen, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at the university who helped direct the research.

"The current gold standard for doing strain analysis takes about three to four days. That is going to be way too long if we get a highly virulent form of avian influenza that becomes human-adapted."

There are quick tests for influenza, but they only tell if a patient has it or not and do not differentiate among strains. The flu virus mutates constantly and several different strains can be circulating at any time.

The chip, which can be configured to test for any flu strain, has been tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was more than 90 percent accurate in identifying samples of the virulent H5N1 avian flu, the university said in a statement.

Influenza kills anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally each year, but health experts expect a pandemic could emerge that would kill many more.

The main threat now is H5N1, which is infecting chickens in parts of Asia and Europe. It has so far infected 123 people and killed half of them. Doctors are concerned lest it mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person.

Rowlen's lab began working to help researchers track the strains of flu in circulation. But a quick diagnostic has become imperative as fears have grown over an H5N1 pandemic.

Samples from suspected human cases of H5N1 are now sent to central laboratories for confirmation, but that takes days. Doctors need to know sooner so they can give patients antiviral drugs within 48 hours to lessen the severity of the illness.

Health officials also need to know rapidly so they can track anyone who may have been infected by the patient.

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"This new technology should help provide better global influenza surveillance by making it easier for more laboratories to swiftly identify severe flu strains, which in turn may aid health officials to stem potential flu epidemics and even pandemics," said Rowlen.

Right now, however, the technology is not easy to use. "We have to take a patient's sample and process it in a rather complicated way," Rowlen said. But her team is working to make the process simpler and more portable.

"We can make it small and simple enough to take into rural areas in places like the Congo, Cambodia or Indonesia that may lack lab facilities," Rowlen said.

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