Indian Scientists develop first cost effective rapid test for common bleeding disorders

Congratulations!! First cost-effective point of care rapid test developed for common bleeding disorders by Indian scientists.

ICMR-NIIH, Mumbai has developed a cost-effective POC rapid diagnostic test for severe Haemophilia A & VWD. This is first in the world POC test for specific diagnosis of any common bleeding disorder. Working cost of these kits is less than Rs. 50 in comparison to existing conventional test for the diseases that cost around Rs. 4000 to 10000.

Haemophilia A and VWD are the commonest among bleeding disorders. As per the Western data, the incidence of Haemophilia A is 1 per 10,000 male births and that of VWD is around 1% of the general population. In India, there is no epidemiological data and with translation of this data with respect to the population, we may have roughly 80000-100000 severe Haemophilia cases in our country, but the total number registered with Haemophilia Federation India (HFI) is only around 19000. Lack of awareness, lack of diagnostic facilities, high cost of tests are some of the factors for the underdiagnosis of bleeding disorders in our country.

Diagnosis of VWD requires a battery of expensive investigations. Patients with severe Haemophilia A or VWD can have life-threatening spontaneous or post-traumatic bleeding like brain haemorrhage and gastrointestinal bleed or they may have bled into joints or superficial bleeding from the nose or gums. In an Emergency Medical setting, it is important to have a quick diagnosis of bleeding disorders for treatment with specific products like the blood components or commercially available factor concentrates which are exorbitantly expensive.

Both Haemophilia A and VWD are underdiagnosed disorders in our country. There are only a handful of comprehensive diagnostic Centres in the country for bleeding disorders.

This rapid test kit can be used for the diagnosis of undiagnosed patients/ menorrhagia cases/ post-partum haemorrhage (PPH), gynecological complications with bleeding history, recovery of factors in the transfused Haemophilia A patients and also for differential diagnosis of Haemophilia A and VWD. Since it does not require any expertise or infrastructure, this can easily access any level of health care system including primary health care centres (PHCs).

The diagnosis can be done within 30 minutes of blood sample collection. The bands are visually detected within 10 minutes of sample application. The kit is composed of special paper membranes which have different components attached on it for the detection of target molecules.

The work was done by ICMR-PDF Dr. Priyanka Kasatkar under the Guidance of Dr. Shrimati Shetty, Scientist F.