The deployment of mobile diagnostic laboratories for Ebola virus disease diagnostics in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Background: Ebola virus emerged in West Africa in December 2013. The ease of mobility, porous borders, and lack of public health infrastructure led to the largest Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak to date.

Intervention: The 2013 EVD outbreak signalled the need for laboratory diagnostic capabilities in areas without strong public health systems.

Sustainable Laboratory Capacity Building After the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in the Republic of Guinea.

The 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola virus disease outbreak heavily impacted the Republics of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The outbreak uncovered the weaknesses of the public health systems, including inadequately trained and insufficient health personnel as well as limited and poorly equipped health infrastructures. These weaknesses represent significant threats to global health security.

Difficulties in the molecular diagnosis of Helicobacter rodent infections.

Molecular diagnostic methods using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are the gold standard in Helicobacter diagnostics. Most rely on the amplification of parts of the 16S rRNA gene sequence. Therefore, the validity and accuracy of results depends heavily on the PCR design and the time of its publication because new sequences are continually being submitted to databases.

Molecular characterization of a virulent canine coronavirus BGF strain.

Molecular characterisation of a canine coronavirus (CCoV) isolate (BGF), associated with an outbreak of diarrhoea in puppies, showed 92.7% identity with attenuated Insavc-1 strain. Canine coronavirus BGF revealed a full length non-structural protein 3b (nsp 3b), associated with virulence in other coronaviruses, and a highly divergent region at the amino terminal domain of the membrane protein that may be implicated in avoiding the host immune reaction.