Tackling Disease

When Olivia Hallisey learned last year that a deadly disease called Ebola was killing thousands of people in West Africa, she wanted to help. As the teen researched the disease, she learned about the challenges of testing for the virus. (Detection methods are expensive and can take up to 12 hours to determine a diagnosis. Also, tests must be refrigerated. That requires electricity—a luxury in developing nations.) So the student from Greenwich, Connecticut, set out to invent an easier way to test for Ebola.

Using components from an existing Ebola detection kit, Olivia created a test that can be done on a card. When a blood sample and water are dripped on it, the card’s surface changes color in 30 minutes if the result is positive for Ebola. A silk film on the card preserves the test for up to a week without refrigeration. Since the test is made of paper, it would cost just $25.

Most of the world is now Ebola-free, but there are a few villages in rural Guinea where the disease may remain. And although Olivia’s Ebola test will require clinical trials before it can be used by health workers in the field, she recently won the grand prize in the annual Google Science Fair. The teen hopes to one day become a doctor in a developing nation. “What affects one country affects everyone,” she recently told her local newspaper. “We have to work together to find answers to the enormous challenges that threaten global health.”