Newly Developed ELISA Test Kits for Screening Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Viral Infections
San Antonio, Texas (PRWEB) August 17, 2016 -- The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak over the past several years has created an urgent need for diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. Alpha Diagnostic International, Inc. (ADI) has developed multiple ELISA test kits for screening MERS virus infections. These test kits will greatly enhance the ability to screen and quarantine humans and other animal species suspected of being infected by the MERS virus and become an important diagnostic tool for the health community as they work to combat further spread of the disease. For additional details on MERS-CoV related products, please visit: http://4adi.com/objects/catalog/product/extras/MERS_Vaccine_ELISA_Flr.pdf
MERS is a viral respiratory infection suspected to be derived from bats. MERS symptoms can range from asymptomatic to severe or even lethal. MERS infected individuals exhibit a high fatality rate with about a third of confirmed cases succumbing to death. What was first identified as an outbreak restricted to countries within the Arabian Peninsula has now shown up in several other Asian countries. The largest outbreak outside of Saudi Arabia was in South Korea in May of 2015 with 36 confirmed deaths and several thousand individuals quarantined. In total worldwide, there have been 1,791 confirmed cases of MERS-CoV, 640 MERS-CoV related deaths, and 27 affected countries.
“ADI has recognized the urgency and importance of developing diagnostic reagents to test for potential viral infection since the very first outbreak in the Middle East during 2012,” says Dr. Masarrat Ali, Scientific Director and President of ADI. “ADI has cloned and expressed various MERS recombinant proteins, made antibodies, and developed various ELISA kits to detect antibodies in animals and humans. ADI is the first company to introduce commercial ELISA kits to detect antibodies in humans, camels, and many other species,” added Dr. Ali.
The MERS ELISA kits developed by ADI allow for the testing of 96 samples using a single kit; each kit contains all reagents and positive and negative controls to perform the tests. These kits have been developed for testing samples in humans, camels, bats, pigs, cows, goats, and sheep. For each species, there are 3 different kits available for testing antibodies against nucleoprotein, spike protein 1, and spike protein 2.
About Alpha Diagnostic International, Inc.: ADI is a privately held, U.S. biotechnology company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. ADI develops, manufactures, and supplies novel diagnostic and quality control reagents and test kits for use in basic biological and disease research in humans and animals. An important mission of ADI is to develop and supply diagnostic and validating solutions for promoting global health through improved vaccine therapeutics and mitigating the spread of human and animal diseases. For additional details, please visit: http://www.4adi.com
Lubna Akhtar, Alpha Diagnostic International, http://www.4adi.com, +1 (210) 561-9515, [email protected]
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