A review on current diagnostic tools and potential optical absorption spectroscopy for HFMD detection

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease (HFMD) is an outbreak infectious disease that can easily spread among children under the age of five. The most common causative agents of HFMD are enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16), but infection caused by EV71 is more associated with fatalities due to severe neurological disorders. The present diagnosis methods rely on physical examinations by the doctors and further confirmation by laboratories detection methods such as viral culture and polymerase chain reaction. Clinical signs of HFMD infection and other childhood diseases such as chicken pox, and allergies are similar, yet the genetics and pathogenicity of the viruses are substantially different. Thus, there is an urgent need for an early screening of HFMD using an inexpensive and user-friendly device that can directly detect the causative agents of the disease. This paper reviews current HFMD diagnostic methods based on various target types, such as nucleic acid, protein, and whole virus. This was followed by a thorough discussion on the emerging sensing technologies for HFMD detection, including surface plasmon resonance, electrochemical sensor, and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Lastly, optical absorption spectroscopic method was critically discussed and proposed as a promising technology for HFMD screening and detection. [Display omitted] •The HFMD diagnostic methods measure various target types including nucleic acid, protein, and whole virus.•The current and lab-based HFMD diagnostic methods based have limitations due to inadequacy of a reliable method in terms of high cost, lack of simplicity, and time-consuming.•Present emerging biosensor technologies for HFMD detection, including surface plasmon resonance, electrochemical sensor, and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy offer direct measurements, user-friendly, lab-free and tag-free.•Optical spectroscopy is proposed for HFMD screening and detection in future work due to its simplicity, which is without requiring ligand development and ligand immobilization onto the surface sensor.