What improvements are needed to diagnose better patients with Chagas disease?
An affordable, easy to use rapid diagnostic test with acceptable sensitivity and specificity is badly needed for Chagas disease. Such a test would make testing in every rural and remote location (without the need for existing laboratories and skilled lab technicians) possible. Currently available tests also need to be simplified, as the ELISA, HAI and IFI take approximately 2- 3 hours to obtain results and often require one lab technician to focus solely on Chagas diagnosis. In cases where this is not possible, patients do not get tested. There is an urgent need for laboratory research to identify new markers of Chagas and develop new technology specially related to the test of cure.
