MK-2206 Designed for Beginners

Syndromic management TRIB1 can be highly effective, but inevitably results in overtreatment, resulting in wasted resources and, potentially, increased antimicrobial resistance. In other cases, e.g. where asymptomatic infection is common, clinical features are non-specific, or treatment is potentially toxic and/or difficult to administer, diagnostic tests are needed. Ideally, the diagnosis should be made at the point of care, so that treatment can be started without delay, and should not depend on the availability of a laboratory or of highly trained staff. This review will focus on point-of-care (POC) tests for infectious diseases that could be used to improve clinical management in resource-limited settings. Although POC tests are commercially available for several infectious diseases of public health importance in the developing world, a large unmet need remains [5] (Table?1). Selleckchem Ibrutinib Until 2009, the WHO recommended that all children presenting to health facilities with fever in malaria-endemic areas should be treated presumptively for malaria [6]. Since 2009, as a result of the increased cost of artemisinin combination treatment and the availability of POC tests with acceptable performance, the WHO has recommended that malaria treatment should only be given to children in whom malaria parasites are detected in the blood [7]. However, with the increasing MK-2206 chemical structure use of malaria POC tests, it has become clear that the majority of children presenting to health services with fever in malaria-endemic areas do not have malaria [8�C10]. Moreover, mortality is higher in the group without malaria, many of whom are suffering from other infections that are not adequately treated [11]. Hospital-based studies in Africa have found that a high proportion of children admitted with fever are suffering from serious bacterial infections [12,13]. In many cases, because of the spread of antimicrobial resistance, the treatment recommended in the IMCI guidelines may not be effective [11,14�C17]. A POC test for the common causes of fever, which will be different in different geographical areas, could have a major impact on the management of life-threatening infections. It is also important to know the local antimicrobial susceptibility of the major bacterial pathogens, which may change rapidly, although POC tests are not necessarily needed to determine this. Acute lower respiratory infections are estimated to cause 1?million deaths annually in children aged