A Concept for a Rapidly Distributable Pathogen Diagnostic

This project was a runner-up for the "Novel research (quantitative)" prize on our Pandemics (Sept 2024) course. The text below is an excerpt from the final project.

Introduction

During the covid19 pandemic, a number of intervention options were immediately available to governments to slow the spread of the virus through their populations, including travel restrictions, closures of businesses/public facilities, and limits on gatherings. While these interventions were effective in quickly lowering the effective reproduction number (Rt) to protect human physical health and healthcare systems, they had a devastating effect on economic health and mental health, and many countries struggled to manage these difficult tradeoffs. Other interventions (such as diagnostic tests, PPE, and particularly vaccines) also provided protections to human health and healthcare systems, with reduced collateral damage to economic health and mental health. However, these interventions were all affected to varying degrees by ramp-up and supply chain constraints. Their contribution to lowering the effective reproduction number (Rt) was therefore greatest later in the pandemic, but much work has been done to identify opportunities to overcome those time constraints and make these interventions available earlier in a future pandemic.

For example, recommendations have been made around stockpiling of PPE as a cost-effective strategy to prepare for a future pandemic (ref). Though vaccines are intrinsically not amenable to stockpiling in advance of a pandemic (as the target pathogen must first be known), vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 were developed and delivered in record time, and further work has been done since then to identify opportunities to further speed up the process. This document will focus on diagnostic testing in the US during the covid19 pandemic, and discuss a concept for a potential future diagnostic approach.

Full project

You can view the full project here.