A global nonprofit working on disease diagnostics says the effort to develop a rapid test for the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has been narrowed to five potential manufacturers, with field trials in eastern Congo potentially beginning within weeks.
The Geneva-based organization FIND, which focuses on developing diagnostic tools, told Reuters that the five candidates were chosen from a pool of 21. The group includes two manufacturers based in West Africa, one in the United States, and two in South Korea.
A rapid antigen test would allow health workers in the field to get results immediately — a significant advantage over the current system, which can require waiting several days for laboratory results. Faster diagnosis could help officials identify infected individuals, isolate them more quickly, and slow the spread of the disease.
There is currently no rapid test approved for the Bundibugyo virus. While rapid tests have been used in past Ebola outbreaks, they were only applied to deceased patients. FIND’s head of business development, Kavi Ramjeet, said the goal this time is to develop tests that work on blood samples from living patients.
Ramjeet said the first tests could reach the field in mid-July. He noted that manufacturers were selected in part based on their ability to quickly scale up production to thousands of tests, though the exact timeline for a broader rollout would depend on the approval process, which he said was still too early to predict.
The outbreak was officially declared on May 15 and has since infected 1,406 people, killing 438 across the eastern Congolese provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, according to government figures released Wednesday. Sources have also told Reuters that officials are tracking possible exposures in two additional provinces.
Health responders are facing major obstacles, including an underfunded medical system strained by widespread cuts to foreign aid, along with a population that has endured decades of conflict and holds deep distrust toward government officials and outside organizations.
Currently, 10 laboratories are equipped to test for Bundibugyo using three different testing methods. However, poor infrastructure — including unreliable electricity, unpaved roads, and ongoing security concerns — makes it difficult to deliver timely results from lab-based testing.
The International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat, a global alliance focused on improving pandemic response, stated this week that rapid antigen tests “have the potential to dramatically accelerate case identification and isolation decisions – deployable at a cost, scale and speed that molecular testing, however decentralised, cannot match.”
FIND is also working to identify manufacturers capable of producing molecular tests in cartridge form — a format that requires less specialized training to operate and could be deployed closer to where patients are being treated.
