Applications

Fighting severe infections is a global challenge of the 21st century. Bacterial infections are a major killer in today's world with over 25 million people diagnosed with life-threatening infections each year. In the western world the economic burden associated with severe infections is estimated to exceed € 30 billion each year.

Due to inadequate treatment and inappropriate medication resulting from today's slow and inaccurate diagnostics, the problem of antibiotic resistance has developed into a serious and steadily increasing issue. Nowadays, more and more infections are caused by multi-resistant pathogens.

Clinical experts and local as well as global healthcare organizations have expressed a strong demand for new, easy to use devices that allow the rapid detection of infectious agents and their potential resistances to antimicrobial drugs for instance for healthcare related infections and tuberculosis.

Healthcare-related infections

Healthcare-related infections are defined as infections that manifest 48 hours or later after hospital admission or within 30 days after discharge. It is estimated that in the western world alone, 4 million cases of these severe infections occur each year.

As the diagnostic methods currently used are too slow (several days in most cases), many healthcare-related infections are recognized too late or not at all and as a consequence are inadequately treated. Oftentimes, the wrong antibiotic is chosen, resulting in prolonged intensive care and higher mortality.

To remedy this situation, a multiparameter diagnostic capability is urgently needed which is able to identify pathogens and their resistances simultaneously within just a few hours. Some clinical studies indicate that through appropriate timely medication, the treatment costs per patient could be significantly reduced due to the shorter hospital stay. The availability of more efficient diagnostics will not only ensure better patient management, but also contribute significantly to savings in the healthcare system.

Tuberculosis (TB)

Tuberculosis (TB) is the most widespread infectious disease on the globe - 2 billion people are latent carriers, 8 million develop the acute form and 2 million people die of tuberculosis each year.

Acute highly contagious TB must be stringently treated with antibiotics over a period of many months. However, many patients stop their therapy too early due to aggravating side-effects. This is one of the reasons why resistant strains of TB have developed against which the common drugs have become ineffective. By now, these strains can be found in every country around the world. Today, around 10% of patients are even assumed to be suffering from a highly resistant form of TB, which is extremely difficult and expensive to treat.

A study funded with the aid of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has shown that simply by introducing better TB diagnosis in the two worst hit regions of the world, it would be possible to save the lives of 625,000 people and costs of more than a billion Euros.