Effectiveness of point of care diagnostics for schistosomiasis
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 - 10:20
in Health & Medicine
An independent review has been conducted to assess how well point of care tests detect Schistosoma infections in people living in endemic regions Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, is a parasitic disease classified as a neglected tropical diseases (NTD), which is common in tropical and subtropical regions. The traditional means of testing for the disease is microscopy, which is lab based. Point-of-care tests and urine reagent tests are quicker and easier to use than microscopy in the field, and this review aims to estimate how well these tests are able to detect schistosomiasis infections in comparison to traditional lab based microscopy.