NewsMedical: Chula Researchers Develop Wireless Hepatitis B Test Kit for Rapid Diagnosis

Chula researchers have developed a remarkable wireless hepatitis B virus test kit to screen for infection and collect data for an online database that’s fast and complete in one step. Industrial production is targeted for use throughout the country.  

Hepatitis B is a disease that causes illness and death in a large population and causes chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer, the most common cancer in Thailand and in the world. For Thailand, the latest data from the Ministry of Health shows that the country currently has more than 2 million people infected with chronic hepatitis B! 

Therefore, hepatitis B is considered a major public health disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) even announced a campaign that aims to eradicate hepatitis B by 2030 or just 6 years from now. 

With the situation of hepatitis B in Thailand combined with the WHO campaign, a group of researchers from Chulalongkorn University led by Prof. Pisit Tangkijvanich, M.D. and Dr. Natthaya Chuaypen from the Faculty of Medicine, together with Professor Dr. Orawon Chailapakul, and Dr. Prinjaporn Teengam from the Department of Chemistry, the Faculty of Science, have jointly developed a Wireless Point-of-Care Testing for Hepatitis B Virus infection to help make the diagnosis of hepatitis B simpler and faster.