Help wipe out parasitic worms at #ECTMIH2019

Soil-transmitted helminths infect 1.5 billion people worldwide. Children infected with parasitic wormsare nutritionally and physically impaired. The World Health Organisation plans to eliminate morbidity due to soil-transmitted helminthiases in children by 2020. 

The treatments are widely available and inexpensive. However, helminths can become resistant to widely used drugs such as albendazole and mebendazole, so proper targeting and monitoring of treatments are important. This requires a straightforward test, observing a faecal sample under a microscope. The problem is that microscopes and trained clinicians are difficult to find in the areas of the world where helminths are most prevalent.

Can portable microscopes help?

UK startup, ioLight Limited has developed a highly portable microscope. The pocket-sized device displays 1-micron resolution images on a smartphone or tablet screen. The instrument is robust and simple to use and technicians can share images with experts anywhere. The picture shows the microscope in use on a faecal sample from saiga antelope in Kazakhstan. It has helped combat resistance to anthelmintic drugs in livestock and horses across Europe. New Forest Equine vets use their portable microscope almost every day for two years to target their mobile worming program.

How effective are human anthelmintics?

ioLight believes that portable digital microscopes have a part to play in monitoring drug resistance.

We are currently seeking partners to help us fund, plan and deliver a trial to validate this hypothesis. We would love to hear from anyone interested in working with us to monitor resistance and the practicalities of using portable microscopes in remote locations.

The future

There is an exciting potential for these devices to assist in diagnosis. Trials at Cambridge University have already proved that the ioLight microscope can count helminth eggs automatically and perhaps speciate some helminths and their eggs.

Does ioLight have the potential to help clinicians anywhere in the world monitor the resistance of parasites to drugs?

Please come and talk to us at the European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health, 16-20 September 2019, Liverpool, UK to find out.