Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2016 April, 238(4)

Review

Development of Point-of-Care Testing for Disaster-Related Infectious Diseases

TOSHIO HATTORI,¹ HAORILE CHAGAN-YASUTAN,¹ BEATA SHIRATORI,¹ SHINICHI EGAWA,² TAKAKO IZUMI,³ TORU KUBO,⁴ CHIE NAKAJIMA,⁵ YASUHIKO SUZUKI,⁵ TOSHIRO NIKI,⁶ BACHTI ALISJAHBANA⁷ and ELIZABETH TELAN⁸

¹Department of Disaster-related Infectious Disease, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
²Department of International Cooperation for Disaster Medicine, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
³Domestic Liaison Office, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
⁴Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Genbaku Isahaya Hospital, Isahaya, Nagasaki, Japan
⁵Research Center for Zoonosis Control, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
⁶Faculty of Medicine, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan
⁷Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia
⁸STD AIDS Cooperative Central Laboratory, San Lazaro Hospital, Manila, the Philippines

After disaster, the victims lose their safe lives and are even exposed to nature where they could suffer from animal bites and vectors followed by suffering from zoonosis or vector-born diseases. Because of the urgent need for rapid and cheap diagnosis for infectious diseases after disaster, anonymous questionnaire clarified that leptospirosis, dengue, diarrhea, and cholera were recognized as common disaster-related infections in the Philippines, while diarrhea and pneumonia were more common in Indonesia. It should also be noted that infectious disease itself such as tuberculosis associated with acquired immune deficiency syndrome in South Africa is a disaster. Thus, the possible occurrence of similar situation in Asia should be prevented. We have conducted an international collaborative research in the Philippines and Indonesia on dengue virus, leptospira and mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infectious diseases. Development of point-of-care testing for molecular diagnosis and disease severity was the principal purpose of the research. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay, which does not require a source of electricity, was developed for leptospirosis, dengue and MTB and has been proved to be useful where resource is limited. The plasma levels of matricellular proteins, including galectin-9 and osteopontin, were found to reflect the disease severities in dengue virus and MTB infection, probably because matricellular proteins are one of the most functional extracellular proteins that are associated with inflammatory edema. The study on disaster-related infectious disease facilitates the international cooperation for development of point-of-care testing for tropical infectious diseases.

keywords —— disaster-related infectious disease; galectin-9; LAMP; osteopontin; point-of-care testing

© 2016 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2016, 238, 287-293

Correspondence: Toshio Hattori, Department of Disaster-related Infectious Disease, Tohoku University, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8575, Japan.

e-mail: toshatto@med.tohoku.ac.jp