What I learned... by contracting a deadly tropical disease

A MONTH AGO I stepped off a plane into the searing heat in Tegucigalpa airport in the capital of the Central American nation of Honduras. I could not have been further out of my comfort zone.

Last September I had quit a masters course in molecular cell biology to start GlowDx after a stint working with the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. The trip to Honduras was part of the Cork- and San-Francisco based IndieBio accelerator programme, run by investor Sean O’Sullivan’s SOSventures, for high-potential bio-technology startups.

I was in Central America to secure infected blood samples necessary for the validation of our revolutionary diagnostic kit and to develop working relationships with industry partners. What I got was much more however, as I experienced first-hand the potentially fatal consequences of contracting a deadly tropical disease in a developing country.

The streets of Tegucigalpa, Honduras Ian Mackenzie Ian Mackenzie

Dengue fever

There is no vaccine available for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne virus which affects an estimated 390 million people every year. However as many cases go unrecorded, the World Health Organisation has said the figure could be as high as 520 million.

Unidentified and untreated, dengue has a mortality rate of up to 50%. But properly diagnosed and the correctly treated this mortality rate can be brought to as low as 1%.

A government worker fumigates a home to prevent dengue fever in Guatemala Associated Press Associated Press

Four days into my trip, I woke up at 4am in indescribable pain. Every joint in my body, right down to the ones in my fingers, burned as if hot coals had been placed between them. My first thought was that it might be food poisoning but I was soon in for a sharp dose of reality.

I lay in bed unable to move, with stomach cramps, a throbbing ache behind my eyes and shakes from a raging fever, which made it almost impossible to comprehend what was happening to me.

My local clinic in El Sitio was protected by two armed guards at a 12ft gate trimmed with razor wire. Inside the clinic, we sat for hours in a small waiting room with countless mosquitoes to keep us company. Men, women and children sat slouched in much the same condition I was in.

Inside the Escuela Hospital in Honduras

Not for everyone

As I lay in the clinic, contemplating my life and wondering how I ended up here, I was reminded of what Sean O’Sullivan had said to us a few months beforehand.

He told us how being an entrepreneur was a journey not for everyone. He said to be successful required untold commitment, dedication and sacrifice. At the time I thought that meant very long hours for little reward, but I now had a new appreciation of what he meant.

I got an initial diagnosis of another virus transmitted by mosquitoes, Chikungunya. But I had to come back the next day for a simple blood count to confirm it as the labs didn’t have the capacity to perform this relatively straightforward test there and then.

The next day, after my results were reviewed by an external doctor, the tests showed my platelet count was dropping off the chart and my immune cells were above normal levels, prompting the doctors to change their initial diagnosis and conclude that I had dengue fever: the same virus that we have developed an affordable and easy-to-use diagnostic test for.

Doyle getting his morning blood count

The irony was not lost on me as I spent the rest of my stay in bed recovering with copious amounts of saline solution and acetaminophen.

When someone contracts a tropical disease, the time it takes to make a diagnosis can literally be a matter of life and death. What can be even more dangerous than waiting to get a diagnosis however, is getting the wrong diagnosis. The treatment for one tropical disease with certain medicine like aspirin can actually be fatal for another.

Fast answers

A GlowDx dengue test would have given the doctors an accurate diagnosis within 30 minutes of me being seen by the lab and the high throughput would have meant that the lab would not have been overburdened by samples. In my case, I would have got my answer almost immediately and not left to wait almost 24 hours.

Doyle with fellow GlowDx founders Aisling Finn, left, and Yensi Flores

In Honduras, current dengue tests cost about $113 (€98), but with the average local earning $80 (€69) per week current diagnostics are out of the reach of many. Our tests are ten times cheaper than existing techniques.

Starting GlowDx with my co-founders has been the best decision I have ever made. I now know first-hand the difference we can make to the lives of millions of people around the world.

Blaine Doyle is the co-founder of Cork-based startup GlowDx. The company is currently speaking to manufacturers with a view to having its test commercially available by mid-2016.

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