Mini-Lab
In brief
[Funding Completed / 2016-2019]
The purpose of the Mini-Lab project is to design and produce a small-scale, autonomous, transportable clinical bacteriology laboratory which is affordable and above all suited to the MSF’s fields of intervention. This concept, developed by MSF with its partners, is also intended to be made available to health care operators in countries with limited resources.
The Mini-Lab project hosted by MSF has been able to benefit from other funding mechanisms and the Foundation has been able to redirect its funding to other emerging initiatives.
Status of the project
News
In detail
The Mini-Lab makes it possible for bacteriological tests, essential to the diagnosis of certain infections, to be carried out in field conditions. It will help reduce the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance by adapting the prescription of antibiotics to the encountered resistances and will thus improve care for patients.
The Mini-Lab will also be be used to support clinical monitoring of antibiotic resistance. It will gather data to improve empirical treatment guidelines and assist in field studies on performance diagnosis, infections and prevention strategies. The target population is hospitalized patients: seriously ill children co-infected with malaria, burns patients with suspected septicaemia, patients with HIV and suffering from fever, etc.
The Mini-Lab combines simplified logistics with robust techniques. It meets the clinical needs of countries with moderate or low resources (LMICs) in which conventional clinical bacteriology is difficult to set up. These techniques are accessible to trained but non-specialist users.
How does it work ?
What were the main stages of the project ?
Our partners
The team
our other projects
AI4CC
The MSF Foundation and its partners will conduct -upon ethical board validation of MSF and Malawian authorities- this clinical study in Malawi as part of MSF's program for care of women with cervical cancer at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the screening program in Blantyre health centers.
Antibiogo
Antibiogo is a diagnostic aid medical device that aims to help doctors prescribe the most effective antibiotics to their patients. It is available as a free, open source and offline Android application. It allows non-expert laboratory technicians to measure and interpret antibiograms. It provides accurate results that can also be used for monitoring purposes and updating empirical treatments based on actual etiology.
3D Programm
The use of 3D technology makes it possible for the best experts to remotely design upper limb prostheses and compression orthoses using digital impressions of face and neck burns of patients treated by MSF in Jordan, Haiti, and Gaza.
RDTs : Measles and meningitis
DiaTROPIX is a new platform for the development and production of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) at the Institut Pasteur in Dakar. This non-profit initiative aims to produce new rapid diagnostic tests that can be made available in countries where access to laboratory diagnosis is low or non-existent.
The MSF Foundation is financing and supporting the development by DiaTROPIX of two new RDTs for measles and meningitis. These two diseases with high epidemic potential represent a real public health problem in countries in which MSF conducts medical programmes, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Alert-Epidemic
Alert-Epidemics is an alert processing and notification system to detect and respond to outbreaks of infectious diseases in precarious situations, including measles, meningitis, cholera and Covid19.
SMS AFYA-YETU
A program designed to enable people living with a chronic disease, particularly those with medical or social vulnerabilities, to quickly identify and report problems that could lead to a lack of follow-up in their treatment or a deterioration of their state of health.
Developing rehabiliation care
Physiotherapy has been part of MSF activities for years, mostly regarding trauma and burns. The MSF Foundation launched in 2017 the 3D printing project and advance practice in rehabilitation for burn faces and upper limb prosthetics. In coordination with ops and medical team in MSF, the MSF Foundation will develop new activities and support initiatives from the field to better integrate physiotherapy in our offer of care, especially regarding pediatrics, women health and burn rehabilitation.
Yellow fever study
A solution to the global vaccine shortage