Faster Aids diagnosis is 3 years away

27/06/2007

Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, US, who have been working on developing a quicker Aids diagnosis, claim that the rapid response test is now three years away from mass production.

Funded by Microsoft's Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation, the test will, when finished, work in a similar to some pregnancy tests which are currently on the market by analysing the user's blood content from a simple prick-test.

A University of Cornell's associate biological engineering professor, Antje Baeumner, told America's news10now: "The test that we developed can quantify how many cells you have in the human blood by just taking a finger prick. And so, within ten minutes, 15 minutes, you know whether a patient needs HIV treatment."

Researchers from around the world have come together to work on this project, which ultimately is designed to provide an efficient, accurate and inexpensive way of diagnosing HIV in its early stages for developing countries.

It is almost unheard of for scientists and researchers from rival countries to come together and share intelligence on a project like this, but all of those involved stressed that for such an important project, the choice to give up their trade secrets was an easy one.

One of the researchers is Steven Reid from the UK's own Imperial College in London. He told Ithaca's local news site Channel 9 WSYR: "We need to test to see who needs that help right now. You can actually look reasonably healthy but actually your immune system is not there and you're very susceptible."

©