The new technology called Urine Test for Malaria (UMT), is a non-invasive bloodless rapid test that can diagnose malaria in less than 25 minutes.
UMT uses a simple dip-stick and unlike the old method which requires health personel, people can self-diagnose for the disease at home.
Eddy Agbo, is a biochemist, and the founder of Fyodor, the biotechnology firm that developed this urine test kit. He says that the technology that took him 8 years of research and development, detects malaria parasite proteins in a patient’s urine.
“Urine is acidic sample , usually when a protein is present in an acidic enviroment, it unravels, it becomes difficult to detect by conventional approach, so we had to re-engineer the tool so as to be able to fish it out be it even in that unconventional state,” says Dr. Agbo.