According to the World Health Organization (WHO), acute respiratory infections are the third leading cause of deaths worldwide, accounting for 4.2 million deaths annually with more than 40 percent of children under the age of five.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) part of NIH, awarded Akonni Biosystems www.akonni.com $224,978 through their Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The funding will help to develop a non-invasive rapid diagnostic test for lower respiratory diseases in children.
General problems treating respiratory diseases include:
- Different species of bacteria, viruses, and fungi exhibit varying levels of drug resistance
- Conventional diagnostic techniques require long turnaround times
- Difficulty in testing a variety of different respiratory pathogens simultaneously.
“The diagnosis of lower respiratory tract infections in children presents additional challenges”, said Dr. Rebecca Holmberg, Director of Application Development at Akonni. “Specimen collection of sputum is difficult since children find it hard to produce.”
Misdiagnosis presents several serious risks, such as public endangerment or the administration of inappropriate therapy, which is largely responsible for the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant strains.
According to Michael Reinemann, Director of Business Development at Akonni said, “We are excited to work on the project to further develop rapid affordable and accurate molecular diagnostic tools.”