RAPID FIELD TEST FOR IODINE LEVELS IN SALT

描述（由申请人提供）：近20亿人（主要在非洲、东南亚和拉丁美洲）碘营养不足。孕妇和儿童患碘缺乏症的风险最大，碘缺乏症表现为一系列异常，包括损害胎儿和婴儿智力发育的甲状腺功能减退。在工业化国家，从20世纪20年代开始，通过在食盐中添加碘，碘缺乏症已经大大减少。最近，国际卫生界一直在努力在发展中国家的农村地区实施盐碘化方案，那里的人口仍然有患缺碘症的风险。有很多挑战。发展中国家的典型服务是由使用低技术生产方法和管理不善的分销渠道的个体手工盐生产者组成的网络。在这些情况下，国际和区域卫生机构需要可行的方法来检查现场多个食盐生产地点和分销链各点的盐碘水平。在这些情况下不能使用实验室检测方法，现有的碘检测试剂盒有很大的局限性。缺乏在食盐中引入规定水平碘的努力是否成功的关键信息，缺碘症干预计划可能变得无效或完全失败。我们与国际控制碘缺乏症理事会的协调员合作，设计了一种专门针对低碘症的盐碘检测试剂盒

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nearly 2 billion people (mostly in Africa, South East Asia and Latin America) have inadequate iodine nutrition. Pregnant women and children are most at risk from iodine deficiency disorders (IDD), which occur as a range of abnormalities including hypothyroidism which impairs mental development in the fetus and in infants. Iodine deficiency disorders have been greatly reduced in industrialized countries through routine addition of iodine to table salt, a practice that started in the 1920's. Recently, the internationa health community has been striving to implement salt iodization programs in the rural areas of developing counties where the populations remain at risk from IDD. There are many challenges. Developing countries are typically served by a network of individual artisanal salt producers using low tech production methods and poorly administered distribution channels. In these situations international and regional health agencies need viable methods to check salt iodine levels in the field at multiple salt production sites and at points along the distribution chain. Laboratory test methods cannot be used in these situations and existing test kits for iodine have significant limitations. Lacking critical information whether their efforts to introduce iodine int salt at the prescribed levels are succeeding, IDD intervention programs can become ineffective or breakdown entirely. Working with coordinators from the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD) we have devised a salt iodine test kit specifically for low resource (rural) settings in developing countries. The test kit uses dry (stable) test reagents tha are incorporated into a uniquely layered multi- reagent cartridge. A chemical reaction sequence is essentially "programmed" into the cartridge eliminating user intervention and the need to handle liquid reagents. Additional merits include: detection of both iodine and iodate over the required range (5-100 ppm), the cartridges and associated reader are low cost items and easy to produce on a large scale. This Phase II proposal describes research necessary to transition the test kit into a functional prototype and includes provision for independent evaluation and feedback from international experts on iodine deficiency disorders.