Approximately 300,000 African children are born each year with sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disease that kills more than 50 percent of those under the age of five who are not diagnosed and treated. A major hurdle in managing sickle cell anemia is the lack of a rapid, low-cost diagnostic test that can be done reliably in developing countries.

Harvard University researchers attempted to address this gap by reporting on a new test that may revolutionize sickle cell diagnosis across the world.

The test uses blood drawn from a suspected patient and can provide a yes or no answer within about 12 minutes for potentially 50 cents. The researchers tested 50 blood samples, half of which contained sickle-shaped red blood cells, and discriminated these samples from healthy samples with high accuracy. The ability of the test to correctly identify sickle cells, the test’s sensitivity, was 91 percent, while the test’s ability to correctly exclude healthy patient samples, the test’s specificity, was 88 percent.

The test is based on a biophysical rather than a biochemical indicator. Sickle-shaped red blood cells are more dense than normal red blood cells. As a result, they may be differentially separated by centrifugation through a “system of aqueous multiphase polymers,” the researchers wrote. The test is easy to perform and interpret, lending it to use in “low-resource settings.”

The researchers say the test is yet a ways off for human use. However, it may one day help doctors identify children with the disease before they present with acute symptoms.

The diagnostic test is described in last week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.