January 26, 2017
The Partnership for Dengue Control (PDC) is organizing a workshop on May 2 to 4, 2017 on new technologies under development and whether they can be used to address Aedes-transmitted arboviruses. The workshop, held at Les Pensières in Annecy (France), will also look at which characteristics should be prioritized, how to meet regulatory requirements, and how to move from innovation to market.
Despite advances in diagnostics for flaviviral infections, there is a critical need for more sensitive, specific, easy to use and affordable tests for point of care (POC) diagnosis, multiplex virologic and serologic assays to differentiate co-circulating viruses of public health significance, eg, dengue, Zika, yellow fever and chikungunya, and methods for viral quantification and genomic characterization. New diagnostic methods continue to be innovated, such as microfluidics, paper-based diagnostics, chip-based systems, micro- and nanofabrication technologies, deep sequencing, among others.
Hence the workshop is organized around three questions:
- What is the current status of Zika and dengue diagnostics?
- What new technologies might be available in the near, intermediate and long-term future?
- What is needed to make these technologies available?