Smartphone APP

 This project is led by our sister company DDTD (www.ddtd.org) and is applied to tests on the cusp of being commercialized by Big Eye Diagnostics.

Studies have shown that even simple monoplex tests designed for self-testing can be misinterpreted. In addition, it is our experience that, although triplex or even quadruplex tests can be generated relatively easily at the purely technical level, their interpretation can be confusing even for trained laboratory personnel, let alone untrained field workers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) or home users in high-income countries, for the simple reason that the more test lines are placed on a lateral flow assay strip, the closer together and hence more difficult to distinguish they will be.

To address this, DDTD has developed a new smartphone-based reader app with funding from LifeArc, which provides lightning-fast data acquisition and interpretation, upload of data in a cloud-based repository, and the ability to retrieve the data in real time from a web portal which can be accessed from anywhere in the world by anyone having been granted access permissions. The main value of this new app consists in a more objective result interpretation (removal of operator bias) and in global data access, traceability and sharing. In addition, the fact of having the data stored in a centralized, globally accessible database will eventually facilitate integration of test results collected across different Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) programs.

The new smartphone app has already been field-tested with two of our tests – the Brugia Test Plus in Malaysia and the Onchocerciasis Biplex Test in Ghana – with excellent results and feedback from end users. The app has been shown to various stakeholders such as the Coalition for Operational Research on NTDs (COR-NTD), the WHO Diagnostic Technical Advisory Group (DTAG), the Expanded Special Project for Elimination of NTDs (ESPEN), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) among others, as well as funding institutions such as the Gates Foundation and members of the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund.