ArcDia launches world’s first antigen test for human bocavirus

Bocavirus is a DNA virus found in 2005. The virus has ever since been a target of intensive clinical research. The results indicate that bocavirus is a common cause of acute respiratory tract infections particularly among children. Practically all people have suffered from bocavirus infection by the age of six. So far, bocavirus has been detected mainly by gene amplification methods, which are sensitive but result in high number of clinically insignificant positive findings. However, bocavirus has not been extensively diagnosed in clinical practice due to lack of accurate and rapid methods.

mariPOC® is known as a highly specific antigen detection method for acute respiratory infections. High specificity is required to pick up clinically relevant true positive bocavirus infection cases. ArcDia offers the bocavirus test as a part of mariPOC® respi multianalyte test, which hereby detects 10 clinically relevant viruses and bacteria from a single swab sample. The bocavirus antigen test is so far available only for research use.

“Launch of the world’s first bocavirus rapid test is yet another demonstration that ArcDia’s products are in the front line of science and diagnostics development in respiratory infectious diseases”, says Director of R&D Dr. Janne Koskinen.

mariPOC® provides multianalyte diagnostic results for influenza-like illnesses and tonsillitis in near patient settings in 20 minutes. The mariPOC® applications are targeted for acute respiratory infections, the most common infectious disease on Earth. mariPOC® is superior in performance compared to the conventional test methods, including lateral flow rapid tests and standard bacterial culture. mariPOC® is designed to improve patient management and quality of health care and it allows timely pathogen-specific diagnostics and medication.

For the complete list of distributors visit www.arcdia.com/eng/contact/distribution/

ArcDia International Ltd is the manufacturer of mariPOC®, the world’s first multianalyte point- of-care diagnostics test for respiratory tract infections. In the future, the company will develop additional point-of-care tests based on its proprietary ArcDiaTM TPX detection technology. The technology is available for prominent industrial parties through in-licensing. Currently, ArcDia is actively seeking distribution partners for mariPOC®. For more information visit www.arcdia.com

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