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A bacteria testing product developed by a Finnish biotechnology company has set a world record by being able to detect 50 dangerous bugs simultaneously, according to its manufacturers.
Mobidiag claims this development is an important milestone in the battle against infectious diseases, especially life-threatening sepsis.
Sepsis is a growing cause of death worldwide – there are around 3 million sepsis cases annually, over 500,000 of them resulting in death. Sepsis is an infection caused by a number of micro-organisms spreading in the bloodstream. The challenge in sepsis treatment is starting adequate treatment with the appropriate antibiotics on time.
Currently, the diagnostics of causative pathogens needed for the antibiotic treatment decision takes 2-5 days based on blood culturing and subsequent pathogen identification.
Mobidiag says that its Prove-it™ Bacteria system allows for pathogen detection 1-3 days earlier than current diagnostics. The PCR and microarray-based test takes less than three hours to complete. Achieved time saving rationalises antibiotic treatment and improves patient outcomes and decreases mortality considerably.
“Our target is to have a single test that reliably detects the majority of dangerous human disease causing bacteria and Prove-itBacteria test is an important milestone on that road,” says Jaakko Pellosniemi, CEO of Mobidiag.
“I strongly believe that Prove-it will rapidly gain foothold on the multibillion microbial diagnostic markets.”
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“If it works, is not too expensive (labs don’t like to pay for a
negative result) and is properly marketed and sold through a strong microbiology supplier, it could compete with the single parameter tests – but needs marketplace ‘concept testing’ first.” – Dr Martin Redshaw, Montauriol, France
