New tool in fight against dengue fever- "dengue dipstick"

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.cairns.com.au/article/201...ocal-news.html

New tool in fight against dengue fever

Daniel Bateman
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
? The Cairns Post


...The simple tool, which is described as a "dengue dipstick", works by having mosquitoes collected from the field ground up, a solution of antibodies added, and then the small device is inserted into the final mess of mashed mozzies.

If the dengue virus is present in the mosquito compound, a red line appears on the dipstick...

[Shiloh]

Re: New tool in fight against dengue fever- "dengue dipstick"

Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...66093412001127

A portable approach for the surveillance of dengue virus-infected mosquitoes

David A. Mullera,
Francesca D. Frentiuc,
Alejandra Rojasa,
Luciano A. Moreirad,
Scott L. O?Neillb, c,
Paul R. Younga, b, Corresponding author contact information, E-mail the corresponding author

a Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
b Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
c School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
d FIOCRUZ/Centro de Pesquisas Ren? Rachou, Av. Augusto de Lima, 1715 Barro Preto, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Received 11 January 2012. Revised 15 March 2012. Accepted 26 March 2012. Available online 3 April 2012.
Abstract

Dengue virus is the most significant human viral pathogen spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. With no vaccine or antiviral therapy currently available, disease prevention relies largely on surveillance and mosquito control. Preventing the onset of dengue outbreaks and effective vector management would be considerably enhanced through surveillance of dengue virus prevalence in natural mosquito populations. However, current approaches to the identification of virus in field-caught mosquitoes require relatively slow and labor intensive techniques such as virus isolation or RT-PCR involving specialized facilities and personnel. A rapid and portable method for detecting dengue virus-infected mosquitoes is described. Using a hand held battery operated homogenizer and a dengue diagnostic rapid strip the viral protein NS1 was detected as a marker of dengue virus infection. This method could be performed in less than 30 min in the field, requiring no downstream processing, and is able to detect a single infected mosquito in a pool of at least 50 uninfected mosquitoes. The method described in this study allows rapid, real-time monitoring of dengue virus presence in mosquito populations and could be a useful addition to effective monitoring and vector control responses...