A low-cost point-of-care device for the simultaneous detection of two sexually transmitted bacterial pathogens in vaginal swab samples

Curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) caused by the bacteria <i>Chlamydia trachomatis</i> (CT) and <i>Neisseria gonorrhoeae</i> (NG) are widespread globally. These infections are particularly dangerous for female patients, causing pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and increased risk of HIV acquisition. Vaginal self-swab sampling can improve access to STI screening but is still subject to treatment delays due to centralized processing. A low-cost point-of-care (POC) device capable of detecting these bacteria from a self- or clinician-collected vaginal swab could address this delay and allow for more timely treatment. In this work, vaginal swab materials from patients infected with CT or NG required a filtration step before lysis and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) detection using a UbiNAAT device. We have shown a simple, low-cost sample preparation method that supports rapid DNA detection from NG and CT on our POC UbiNAAT platform.