Development of a Point-of-care Assay for the Detection of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) Virus, a Militarily Important Pathogen of the CENTCOM and AFRICOM Ar

Rift Valley fever is a mosquito-borne viral disease that is a significant threat to human and livestock. VecTOR Test Systems, Inc. will develop a point-of-care assay for detection of Rift Valley Fever virus (RVFV) infection in deployed military service members. In Phase I prototypes were developed and evaluated to demonstrate successful feasibility of detection of RVFV antigen and RVFV-specific IgM and IgG in control samples. In Phase II, development of the product with required sensitivity and specificity performance will be completed. The tests will be laboratory and field evaluated to collect data for application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The developed POC test will aid in the diagnosis of infected personnel. The technology is based on the simple and reliable immunochromatographic detection method by which sensitive test-strip based assays provide results in less than 30 minutes. The proposed assays will be easy to perform and results easy to interpret in far-forward situations. The assay will be made available in a kit with components required to perform the assay. The assay kit will be stable at ambient storage conditions.