• Melioidosis has a 40% mortality rate

• Bacterial cultures are slow with a low sensitivity

  • Misdiagnosis, slowing treatment correlated with increased mortality. The medicine cannot be used empirically, ie won’t be given without a certain test result

  • Incorrect diagnosis

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Melioidosis is a tropical disease caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei and is a major problem facing rural Thai communities, specifically in the Northeastern, Eastern and central areas of Thailand. The mortality rate in these communities is over 40%.  There are two major factors that contribute to this high mortality rate. The first is the difficult in properly diagnosing melioidosis.  Currently cases are diagnosed via bacterial culture, which can take several days and only has a sensitivity of 60%. Which means many melioidosis cases go untreated. Secondly, the access to the antimicrobial drugs is often limited and the drugs are only administered following a positive bacterial culture. This policy delays the administration of the drug, which has been shown to correlate with decreased patient outcomes. Together these issues accelerate the need for a rapid, sensitive melioidosis diagnostic tool. The Chantratita lab is currently developing a diagnostic tool based on IgG antibodies targeting hemolysin co-regulated protein 1 (Hcp1) as an rapid point of care tool.