Early diagnosis of meningitis using multiplex biomarker-based detection

Meningitis is the second largest infectious killer of children in the world. Meningitis is usually caused by a viral or a bacterial infection. Viral meningitis, the most common, is less serious; however, bacterial meningitis can lead to severe health problems if not treated. The symptoms presented by patients infected by bacterial meningitis are very similar to those of many illnesses, which hinders its detection. The current diagnostic test is time-consuming and requires of specialised laboratories, involving the examination of cerebrospinal fluid. This leads, in some cases, to the administration of antibiotics before confirmation of the infection. There is a need for the development of diagnostics tests for the early detection and discrimination of bacterial meningitis that are rapid, simple to perform and that can be deployed at the point-of-care. Addressing this challenge forms the basis of this project. The outcome of this project could set the basis for the development of point-of-care diagnostic tools for other infectious diseases and would limit unnecessary use of antibiotics.