New rapid blood tests can spot deadly sepsis and also flag up signs of ten other serious diseases in minutes

Severely ill patients could soon be given a blood test that can show in seconds if they have sepsis – the immune system reaction that can kill within hours.

The £100 single-use kit – which works using the same technology as Covid rapid lateral flow tests – could also be used to spot the early signs of other diseases, including cancer and heart disease.

Sepsis occurs when bacterial infections such as pneumonia, or viral infections, including flu, send the immune system haywire, causing it to attack major organs. About 150,000 people a year are admitted to hospital with the condition, and it leads to about 48,000 deaths, but there is no reliable test for it.

The British scientists behind the kit, known as a multiplex test, which could be given to paramedics and hospital teams, say it could be available in the UK by 2025 and save thousands of lives each year.

‘Right now, it takes far too long to diagnose sepsis,’ says Dr Mike Hudson, chief executive of EDX Medical, the firm behind the test. ‘Our blood test could help get people into hospital quicker and reduce the number of sepsis deaths.’

In March, actor Jason Watkins (pictured) said the death of his two-year-old daughter Maude due to sepsis in 2011 was avoidable because hospital staff missed the warning signs

Sepsis occurs when bacterial infections such as pneumonia , or viral infections, including flu , send the immune system haywire, causing it to attack major organs

‘Right now, it takes far too long to diagnose sepsis,’ says Dr Mike Hudson, chief executive of EDX Medical, the firm behind the test. ‘Our blood test could help get people into hospital quicker and reduce the number of sepsis deaths’

There are at least 245,000 cases of sepsis in the UK every year, many developing while patients are in hospital. The first symptoms are often severe breathlessness, high temperature, slurred speech or disorientation. However, these are often missed by doctors or mistaken for less severe conditions.

In March, actor Jason Watkins said the death of his two-year-old daughter Maude due to sepsis in 2011 was avoidable because hospital staff missed the warning signs.

Experts say they have long known what changes in the blood – known as biomarkers – are linked to sepsis, but have not been able to build a rapid test that can reliably diagnose the condition.

‘There are biomarkers in the blood you can look out for that suggest something is going wrong in the immune system,’ says Dr Hudson, ‘but there are around three to five different biomarkers that all need to be there to prove it’s sepsis, otherwise it could just be a fever.

‘Currently we can carry out a test in a lab that can spot these changes, which can take up to a day, but the rapid test technology that can be done in the patient’s home, by a GP or ambulance crew isn’t there yet.’

Dr Hudson believes the test will be the answer to that problem.

A finger-prick sample of blood is dropped on to the device, and within minutes dots on a paper screen flag up different biomarkers that are present in the blood.

‘If you did the test and three out of five of the sepsis biomarkers flashed up, it would be clear the patient needed urgent specialist hospital treatment,’ says Dr Hudson.

Trials have found that the test can spot most biomarkers linked to sepsis. Other biomarkers could indicate up to ten other diseases, including bladder, pancreatic, cervical and breast cancer, the makers say.

A study of the test’s effectiveness is due to be published before the end of the year.