Polio could be detected in wastewater in half the time using a new technique, helping public health authorities to respond quickly to deadly outbreaks, a study has found.
The research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), supported by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), represents the first time that (DDNS) has been used to detect polio, reducing the average testing time from 42 to 23 days, with an accuracy rate exceeding 99%.
Alex Shaw, a research fellow at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who was the lead author of study, said: “This method allows the rapid confirmation of polio strains, facilitating swifter vaccine responses that can reduce the number of polio cases stemming from an outbreak.”
