Real-time plant virus mapping

The Challenge

• About 800-million people worldwide rely on cassava as a staple crop, but the cassava brown streak virus is destroying entire harvests and its range is spreading.
• ELLA, a digital diagnostics platform, offers immediate results in the field and provides real-time agricultural surveillance, even for remote, rural areas. This $1 test is as sensitive as some laboratory tests, enabling early detection and a rapid data-informed response.
• The ELLA platform is being adapted to detect other agricultural pathogens, bacterial infections in humans, and to quantify food fortification in low-resource contexts.