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A request for emergency authorisation of a flu test at present restricted to research use only has been made by Osmetech to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Its respiratory pathogen test panel can differentiate between 18 common bacterial and viral infections, including the pandemic H1N1 swine flu subtype. The test has been adapted for use from Qiagen’s QIAplex-based respiratory viral test molecular diagnostics system.
Osmetech boss James White said: “We believe that our test is ideally suited for fast and reliable screening of Influenza A virus types, including the swine flu strain which is currently a major pandemic concern.
“The test will be run on our eSensor XT-8 platform, which is a small, portable and easy to use platform that has the potential to enable testing to occur in numerous locations.”
The XT-8 system is billed as a next-generation platform using unique electrochemical technology to detect nucleic acids on a microarray.
Copyright Press Association 2009
