Background: A mobile laboratory transportable on commercial flights was developed to enable local response to viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks.
Methods: The development progressed from use of mobile real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction to mobile real-time recombinase polymerase amplification. In this study, we describe various stages of the mobile laboratory development.
Results: A brief overview of mobile laboratory deployments, which culminated in the first on-site detection of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in March 2014, and their successful use in a campaign to roll back EVD cases in Conakry in the West Africa Ebola virus outbreak are described.
Conclusions: The developed mobile laboratory successfully enabled local teams to perform rapid disgnostic testing for viral hemorrhagic fever.