Session:

Typhoid Fever

Abstract No.:

18.002

Title:

Solving the typhoid diagnostics conundrum

Author(s):

S. Baker; Oxford University Clinical Research Unit - Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Enteric Infections, Ho Chi Minh/VN

Abstract:

Typhoid fever is serious bacterial infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi and other related invasive Salmonella. In endemic areas, diagnostic tests are needed to diagnose acute cases for clinical management, to detect convalescent and chronic fecal carriage and for contact tracing. However, the diagnostic tests that are currently used are poor. Blood culture is the currently mainstay of typhoid diagnostics, yet is insufficiently sensitive and technically demanding, and bone marrow culture, although more sensitive, is infrequently performed. There is a clear need for a novel approach to typhoid diagnostics. We have made extensive inroads into understanding how the organisms are transmitted and how they interact with the human host. Yet, these new insights into studying disease have not, as yet, let to new approaches for diagnosing typhoid fever.As the result of a meeting held in London in 2010, we have generated a typhoid fever diagnostics working group. Though a number of collaborations, generated through this group, we have investigated a number of novel techniques aimed at developing the next diagnostic test for typhoid.Here, I discuss the approach of the typhoid diagnostics consortium and I present the preliminary data for several methods which may become the gold standard for typhoid diagnosis in the future.We have a clear blueprint for the next typhoid diagnostic and through the typhoid community we hope to develop some of the these new tests over the coming years, taking the leading method into production