The current Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak has caused more than 5000 deaths within a few months in West Africa (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia being the most severely affected countries), including numerous healthcare workers. It is now is serious public health crisis of international concern . The numbers of cases are still increasing 11 months after the first case was described (December 2013), by mid November 2014 approximately 15000 individuals have been infected and the epidemic is still not under control The direct effects of this outbreak include disruption of standard medical care, insecurity and social disruption in countries that were already struggling to recover from decades of war. One of the most important key actions to limit and stop the spread of this deadly disease is to identify and isolate the EBOV-infected patients. The diagnosis of Ebola Virus infections has in the past, been performed overwhelmingly in specialist reference laboratories with high-performance molecular, serological and culture methods.In recent years many of these functions have been mobilised into rapid response mobile laboratories, indeed several of these units supported by, European, CDC/USA, Canadian, Chinese and African states have been set up to help in the current outbreak by performing laboratory diagnosis, in collaboration with national centres in West Africa. While this type of response has been effective in helping control past EVD outbreaks in rural parts of Africa, it has not been as effective at controlling the current outbreak which is now spreading in densely populated city and slum areas. Unfortunately, the diagnostic procedures currently used in the mobile laboratories are associated with several problems: i) there are a limited number of diagnostic hubs, ii) performing the diagnostic tests correctly requires specialist training, skill and experience, consequently there a limited numbers of trained staff

VHFMoDRAD will develop and deliver rapid and point-of-care singel/multiplex diagnostic tool(s) that will significantly increase our capacity to handle outbreaks with Filoviruses and other viral hemorrhagic fever diseases in Africa. The overall aim of VHFMoDRAD is to carry on the outcome of the currently running EbolaMoDRAD project to the next level, which is behind of the scope of that project. The goals of VHFMoDRAD will be done via a multidisciplinary research consortium drawn from key European and African research organisations and also industry and SMEs, thus consolidating previous tools and knowledge. VHFMoDRAD will also put in place a strong capacity building programme in West Africa The project will disseminate widely all results as they become available, notably to public health bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), via a strong outreach programme. To achieve this overall aim an intensive work plan will be put in place, with the following specific objectives: - to develop rapid molecular and serological single/multiplex detection methods; - perform preclinical validation of diagnostic tools; - to validate the successful diagnosis tools under field conditions; - implement a strong capacity building programme in West Africa by a twining program; - to exploit results; - to disseminate the results to public health bodies, NGOs, outbreak management teams and local hospitals in West Africa.

There is an urgent need for fast and accurate diagnostic tests in the current Ebola crisis. The rapid diagnosis of EVD during early and late stage of infection is a decisive step for risk assessment and for guidance to physicians to take the necessary decisions to limit the spread of the infection, and to safely nurse the infected patients. While fast and easy-to-use tests usually rely on immuno-diagnostic approaches, they typically lack high sensitivity and specificity. The gold standard for accurate diagnostics, (Real-Time) PCR, however, is limited in terms of processing time, high costs, and in most cases also in terms of ease of use and the need of special laboratory facilities. The aim of this project is to provide an ultra-fast and accurate molecular diagnostic instrument that can perform a molecular Ebola test within 10-15 minutes. Patients, suspected of Ebola Virus Disease (EBD), due to fever and/or other clinical signs, could be rapidly and accurately tested at the Point-of-Care by withdrawal of blood, or less invasive fluids, such as saliva or urine. The core technology of this proposal is based on laser-heated nanoparticles (Laser PCR), overcoming the time-limiting step of heating and cooling the reaction sample in conventional PCR allowing for drastically reduced turn-around times. The project partners (GNA, INMI, MUB, EMG) have the competence to integrate sample preparation with virus-binding magnetic particles, ultra-fast molecular diagnostics with Laser PCR, test the system in a biosafety level 4 laboratory in Rome, Italy, and thoroughly conduct field testing in a medical care centre in West Africa (Sierra Leone). A tentative Ebola Laser PCR assay has already been set up, detecting 10 target copies of synthetic DNA oligos, corresponding to the Ebola genome sequence, in less than 12 minutes. The FILODIAG project will deliver a potentially multiplexed diagnostic system fast enough for point-of need testing of incoming patients at low-resource