FilmArray Respiratory Panel Integrated in a field Point Of Care dispositive for the diagnosis of respiratory tract infections in rural areas in Senegal

Hubert Bassene; Sophie Edouard; Georges Diatta; Jean Christophe Lagier; Oleg Mediannikov; Florence Fenollar; Aldiouma Diallo; El Hadji Ba; Didier Raoult; Philippe Parola; Michel Drancourt; Cheikh Sokhna

PCR is a method that has a good sensitivity and specificity and allows the concomitant 88 detection of several microorganisms by multiplexing. In addition, the delivery time of results 89 is shorter than for other techniques (7). The best approach could be to target several pathogens 90 in a single run, in order to reduce detection costs, to increase the speed of the diagnosis and 91 . CC-BY 4.0 International license author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/502575 doi: bioRxiv preprint 6 finally to target a wide range of pathogens. The devices that are currently available meet 92 many of these requirements. Their differences are in the number of pathogens included in the 93 panel, the species targeted, integrated nucleic acid extraction and the duration of the PCR. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/502575 doi: bioRxiv preprint 7 attending health posts in Toucar, Diohine and Ngayokhem. We included patients presenting 115 with fever and cough, expectoration, dyspnea, sore throat and/or cold/runny nose. These to the laboratory for analysis. The following age categories (<1, 1-5, 6-21, 22-65 and >65 125 years) were adopted to study the prevalence rates. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/502575 doi: bioRxiv preprint 8 the sample to be analyzed, the FilmArray® cassette is loaded into the instrument and the 140 sample number is recorded using a bar code reader. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/502575 doi: bioRxiv preprint category), followed by the 1-5 years category (27/49, 55%) ( Table 1) . The difference between 178 these two categories was significant (ᵡ 2 = 4.04, p<0.05). No pathogen was identified in the 22-179 65 years category. Infections in the 1-5 category was more diversified, 11 pathogens were 180 identified, more than in the other categories. Pathogens were identified throughout the study, but the fact that the prevalence was higher 219 during the rainy season suggests seasonality in the transmission of pathogens. However, in 220 this study, the collection of specimens during a limited period constitutes a limit, because