Portable HIV pathology for Africa

The movable lab: In Kasensero, Uganda,
doctors tried out the Daktari Diagnostics device,
which can provide HIV patients with on-the-spot test results.

Daktari CD4 | Daktari Diagnostics, inc.

Portable pathology for Africa
Dolgin, E., "Portable pathology for Africa," Spectrum, IEEE , vol.52, no.1, pp.37,39, January 2015
doi: 10.1109/MSPEC.2015.6995631
Abstract: When John Barber, a project manager at Daktari Diagnostics, sought to test his company's instrument, he went to the type of place where the technology might have the most impact: a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda. He awoke at dawn on a November morning in 2013, tossed a few Daktari devices into a backpack, and, together with a team of HIV-treatment specialists, drove 2 hours to the village of Kasensero, where the first Ugandan case of HIV was reported more than 30 years ago. Driving a Jeep along dirt roads with more cows than traffic, "we were off the grid," Barber recalls.
keywords: {Africa;Companies;Human immunodeficiency virus;Instruments;Medical diagnostic imaging;Testing},
URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6995631&isnumber=6995607

Daktari CD4 is a system portable and robust enough to be used anywhere, from a doctor’s office to the most remote settings. Combining groundbreaking innovations in microscale technologies with simplicity in design and use, Daktari brings this essential blood test to parts of the world where millions of people now have access to life-saving drugs, yet cannot receive the best treatment due to inadequate diagnostics.

• Microfluidics – Daktari’s sample preparation technology, known to specialists as microfluidic cell chromatography, isolates cells and other particles in a miniature sensing chamber, without pipetting, labels, or reagents of any kind — none of the complex manual steps that take blood tests out of the hands of clinicians who work beyond the reach of sophisticated labs.
• Electrochemical Sensing – Daktari CD4 also takes advantage of a second innovation, lysate impedance spectroscopy. The system uses a simple sensor that counts the captured CD4 cells by measuring their internal contents electrically. A handheld instrument interprets the electrical signal and reports the CD4 count within minutes.