Urine Malaria Test Kit To Help Nigerians Beat Malaria

     First of all, I absolutely need to get this because I hate needles. So this is the Urine Malaria Test kit, which is done using a new technology that uses urine samples instead of the conventional blood test. The non-blood malaria test kit was developed in the U.S. by a Nigerian born doctor, Eddy Agbo for his company Fyodor Bio-Technology, based on a patented technology developed by John Hopkins University.
     It uses a test strip that gives quick diagnosis of malaria. The test strip is placed in a container of urine and left to stand for 25 minutes. If two red lines appear across the strip, the test is positive, while if one line appears, it is negative.
     The kit is currently being manufactured in the US, with plans to produce in Nigeria in the future. More than 3 million US dollars in funding from private loans, the National Science Foundation and the US army has been injected into the project.
     The producers of the Urine Malaria Test kit say this will help reduce unpleasant tests and also discourage people from self medicating whenever they have a fever. A pack of five test strips sells for about 2,500 naira (12 USD).
     Although the number of malaria deaths have fallen dramatically in recent years due to increased aid in spending on basic items such as insecticide treated bed nets and drugs, last year, there were 214 million cases of malaria and it killed 438,000 people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Close to 3.2 billion people, almost half the world's population are at risk of contracting malaria, according to WHO.

Please click here for video.

Picture credit: +Seun Sanni

Interview time with Victoria Enwenamdu, Global Head of Projects, Fyodor Bio-Technology and colleague +Sharon Ogunleye 




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