Target Diseases

A trend of forced misdiagnosis

Febrile illnesses which pose symptoms similar to malaria are of particular concern in malaria-endemic countries. Patients who present symptoms such as fever, nausea, and headache are often suspected to have malaria before a diagnosis is even made due to malaria's prevalence in these regions. The tragedy lies in the fact that patients who test negative for malaria are often given antimalarial drugs despite their diagnosis, which worsens their condition and costs healthcare systems a fortune. Clinicians in malaria-endemic countries are presented with a dilemma as healthcare professionals when a patient with symptoms similar to malaria is revealed to actually not have the disease through commonly used diagnostics such as the Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDT) and blood smears. They must make a significant decision based on limited information, the consequences of which would have severe effects on the patient. On one hand, they know that their patient most likely does not have malaria based on the tests, but on the other, they do not have the diagnostic means to explore the possibility of other diseases and they know that missing a case of malaria is considered unforgivable. Some clinicians will opt to treat all cases of fever, nausea, etc. as malaria and prescribe anti-malarial drugs, consequently ensuring that no case of malaria goes untreated. Those who wish to consider alternative diagnoses are left with very few diagnostic options due to the limited resources and time available to them. The must ask themselves the question, "if it's not malaria, then what is it?". We researched a wide spectrum of infectious diseases symptomatically similar to malaria and common throughout the world and decided to target the following diseases using our multiplexed diagnostic device:

• Typhoid fever
• Dengue fever
• Meningitis
• Pneumonia
• Visceral leishmaniasis
Our device was designed with a