Publications by authors named "Michael Lasuba"
The clinical performance of two rapid antigen tests for the diagnosis of Severe Acute Respiratory Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) were regionally evaluated in East African populations. Swabs were collected from 1,432 individuals from five Partner States of the East African Community (Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan). The two rapid antigen tests (Bionote NowCheck COVID-19 Ag and SD Biosensor STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag) were evaluated against the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA by the Reverse Transcription PCR (RT-PCR) gold standard.
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- - On May 18, 2017, an outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea and vomiting was reported in Makuac payam, Warrap State, prompting an investigation to identify the cause and inform control measures.
- - The study defined suspected, probable, and confirmed cholera cases, reviewing patient records and conducting an epidemiological study to analyze case distribution and calculate attack rates and mortality.
- - A total of 1451 suspected cholera cases were identified, with a majority testing positive for the cholera-causing organism V. cholerae, primarily affecting those aged 30 and above, and an oral vaccination campaign was implemented to curb the outbreak.
Cholera rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) could play a central role in outbreak detection and surveillance in low-resource settings, but their modest performance has hindered their broad adoption. The addition of an enrichment step may improve test specificity. We describe the results of a prospective diagnostic evaluation of the Crystal VC RDT (Span Diagnostics, India) with enrichment step and of culture, each compared to polymerase chain reaction (PCR), during a cholera outbreak in South Sudan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Oral cholera vaccines represent a new effective tool to fight cholera and are licensed as two-dose regimens with 2-4 weeks between doses. Evidence from previous studies suggests that a single dose of oral cholera vaccine might provide substantial direct protection against cholera. During a cholera outbreak in May, 2015, in Juba, South Sudan, the Ministry of Health, Médecins Sans Frontières, and partners engaged in the first field deployment of a single dose of oral cholera vaccine to enhance the outbreak response.
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