Rotaract donates rapid test kits for dengue to health authority |04 August 2017

The first cases of the dengue epidemic were detected at the end of 2015 and according to Dr Kenneth Henriette, the chief executive of the Public Health Authority, 1260 cases of dengue have been confirmed so far.

Dr Henriette acknowledged a decline in the number of cases in these past few months but he also affirmed that the ministry must remain vigilant because this trend might change.

In this spirit of combating the dengue epidemic, the Rotaract Club of Mahé has donated a total of 17 dengue fever rapid test kits to the Public Health Authority of the Ministry of Health.

The small ceremony was held at the ministry’s headquarters on Wednesday in the presence of the Minister for Health Jean-Paul Adam and staff of the ministry.

Dr Winnie Low-Wah, who is the immediate past president of the Rotaract club and also a medical officer at the ministry, presented the kits to Dr Henriette.

“When Rotaract got chartered in July 2016 we were wondering what projects we would be doing and as you know since the end of 2015 that is when the first cases of the dengue epidemic were detected. We noticed our friends, families and colleagues were being affected so we thought we should do something that could help,” Dr Low-Wah explained.

“We realised that many of the patients who were diagnosed with dengue were told that there was no test that could help them get their diagnosis fast so we went and found that there are rapid dengue kits we could donate to the hospitals,” she added.

Each of these 17 kits holds 25 one-off disposable rapid tests which mean that only 425 of these tests will be available.

According to Dr Low-Wah the procurements of these tests cost R30, 422 – an amount raised through fund-raising activities such as sponsored walks and Regatta events.

She further added that the project was meant to be completed as of last year but was delayed due to logistics constraints.

“The kits should be transported at a certain temperature so we had to merge with the Ministry of Health to be able to ship them.”

Francoise Ahmane, who is a laboratory technologist and the director for funding at the Rotaract Club, gave an overview of how the tests work.

“The test requires a tiny sample of the patient’s blood because dengue will be in your blood and it is testing for antibodies. So when you have the infection your body automatically tries to fight the infection by making these antibodies. You can use whole blood, which is the normal blood you know, or plasma or serum which are blood components.”

The dengue tests are similar to commercial pregnancy tests as the diagnostic results are indicated by pink lines which appears after a drop of blood is made on a section of the test. The entire procedure takes less than 45 minutes.

However the ministry will have to validate and test these rapid tests before they are distributed to clinical labs.