| Recent researches have reported that the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic, which swept through the globe costing 50 million humans lives, was caused by the transmission of AIV from poultry to humans. Trends have also shown that human and avian influenza epidemics reappeared nearly every 30 years in the past. With the last occurrence in 1968, we are in a very susceptible time period for possibly another pandemic. Devastations could however be minimized if we could make proper use of the advanced genetic diagnostic technologies available on AIV detection.
Currently, three molecular diagnostic technologies developed by Hai Kang Life are available for human AIV detection, namely VDS, VetDetect, and VetScreen. VDS makes use of the highly advanced Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification (NASBA) technology, VetDetect utilizes real-time reverse transcriptase - polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), whereas VetScreen employs the conventional gel-based RT-PCR technique. All these tests are highly sensitive and specific which gives accurate results in a short period of time. VDS and VetDetect, for instance, could have results available in 2-4 hours.
Now, the situation for AIV detection usually takes up to a week for traditional immuno-based detection methods to give results, and they are not sensitive enough. On the contrary, our kits serve as an excellent tool for rapid and accurate diagnosis of AIV infection, and they offer a wide spectrum of choices fulfilling the needs of different laboratories. There are two types of testing kits available for VDS, one using electrochemiluminescence (ECL) which requires an ECL detector, and one utilizes our novel enzyme-linked oligonucleotide capture (EOC) technology which only requires the standard ELISA plate reader. NASBA-EOC, being equally sensitive and specific to NASBA-ECL, makes this invaluable tool affordable to many laboratories around the world. For laboratories that prefer to use RT-PCR, both real-time and gel-based options are available through VetDetect and VetScreen.
In fact, Hai Kang Life AIV test systems are either already in use or being evaluated by various government and private laboratories worldwide in the testing of influenza samples, including agricultural departments and inspection and quarantine bureaus in China, Thailand and South Africa, and animal health organization reference laboratories around the globe. Our kits are constantly modified so that they are able to cover the most recent isolates resulting from mutations. Whether to private or government laboratories, they offer extremely cost-effective means for AIV detection. |
