With the support of UKRI and the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, Colworth Park based AgPlus Diagnostics have developed a 15-minute test that can distinguish between viral and bacterial infections.

This ability for point of care testing will help doctors to prescribe antibiotics only to the patients that need them and not unnecessarily to patients with viral infections that will not respond to the antibiotics.

This achievement would not have been possible without the dedication and expertise of the fantastic team at AgPlus who have continued working under the additional pressure that the Covid restrictions have placed upon us all.

Diseases can become drug-resistant when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites evolve and stop responding to medicines like antibiotics; this is known as Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

The populations’ growing resistance to antibiotics is fast becoming a major global health challenge and over-prescription of antibiotics is recognized as one of the major causes of AMR. The work AGPlus Diagnostics has done on developing a test to differentiate between viral and bacterial infections truly has worldwide implications in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

You can read more about the fight against antibiotic resistance spread on the UKRI website here.