London – The director and member of the executive committee of the MAScIR foundation, Hassan Sefrioui, was part of the jury of renowned international experts who awarded, Wednesday evening in London, the prestigious ”Longitude” Prize to a diagnostic test superbugs.
The £8 million Longitude Prize was awarded following a competition to find new tools to combat the scourge of superbugs. The award-winning test can quickly detect whether an infection is caused by bacteria and identify the right antibiotics to treat it.
Developing a medical diagnostic test is a difficult task due to the high cost of raw materials, heavy equipment and labor, especially for low- and middle-income countries. namely Mr. Sefrioui.
Hence the importance of developing cost-effective tests based on affordable technologies that can overcome transport and cold chain problems, he explained in a statement to MAP.
The test works for urinary infections, added Sefrioui, who is also a member of the World Health Organization’s technical and diagnostic advisory group, specifying that when the patient first arrives at the hospital or in a doctor’s office, it is not easy to know if your infection is caused by bacteria, a virus or even a fungus.
Doctors must then send a sample to a clinical microbiology laboratory, but it can take several days to reveal the cause and which antibiotics the infection may be susceptible to. However, the award-winning test reveals in 15 minutes whether the infection is bacterial and in 45 minutes, which antibiotics are effective, detailed Mr. Sefrioui.
The original work on the award-winning test was carried out by Swedish researchers and the test is now marketed by the company Sysmex Astrego.
The Longitude Prize, whose financial reward is almost ten times greater than that of a Nobel Prize, was born from a competition organized in 1714. This year’s edition therefore focused on the modern scourge of superbugs.
According to official estimates, infections that are resistant to the drugs used to treat them kill more than a million people each year, earning the problem the name “silent pandemic.”
The MAScIR Foundation is a non-profit association which comes under the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. Created in 2007, it aims to promote and develop technological research centers in the fields of materials and nanomaterials, biotechnology, microelectronics and life sciences. Its work is oriented towards applied research and innovation to meet market needs.
