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Scrub typhus is a mite-borne, acute febrile illness caused by the bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi. It is a re-emerging infectious disease of the tsutsugamushi triangle. Scrub typhus is transmitted through bites of contaminated chiggers (larval stage). Diagnosis of scrub typhus is challenging as its symptoms mimic with other acute febrile illnesses. Several methods are effectual for diagnosis of scrub typhus that includes enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunofluorescence assay (IFA), immunochromatographic test (ICT), Weil-Felix, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). Weil-Felix test was initially used for the diagnosis of scrub typhus in underdeveloped countries but not preferred due to a lack of both specificity and sensitivity. Other immuno-based methods like IFA and ELISA are most outrank for detection of scrub typhus due to their higher sensitivity and specificity, but not vigorous to lay bare the infection at early stages and need the convalescent sampling for verification of positive samples. On another deed, PCR based methods becoming acceptable over era due to its dexterity of early-stage diagnosis with higher specificity and sensitivity but lack its applicability in circumstances of scrub typhus due to the variegated genetic makeup of Orientia tsutsugamushi among its serotypes. The present review focused on various detection methods along with their advantages and disadvantages used in the diagnosis of scrub typhus. A comparison between available methods of diagnosis with challenges in the detection of scrub typhus is also summarized.

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Lab-on-Chip (LoC) integrates various analyses such as biochemical operations, chemical synthesis, DNA sequencing onto a single chip which otherwise would have been performed in laboratory taking sufficient amount of time. Due to the miniaturization of these biochemical operations, better diagnostic speed, cost efficiency, ergonomy, sensitivity and so on can be achieved. This paper gives the detailed description of Lab-on-Chip technology including its system components. Ongoing worldwide research projects based on LoC technology have been investigated and various constraints that need to be fulfilled for designing a LoC system are presented. The biomedical applications of LoC in different fields like in diagnostics, cellomics, in environmental studies to control the effect of pathogens, to check the food quality such as for the detection of various antibiotic families in raw milk have also been discussed. Finally, the current open research issues of this technology along with the possible future research scope in the biomedical area have been presented.

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