Luminex' xTAG RVP effective in swine flu surveillance

Luminex Corp,a US specialist in multiplexed solutions, says that its xTAG Respiratory Viral Panel assay has been demonstrated to be effective  in surveillance of swine influenza.

Luminex has verified through testing on confirmed swine flu-positive  samples that the xTAG RVP assay will correctly identify these samples as  positive for influenza A and negative for the common seasonal flu  strains of A H1 and H3. This is the expected outcome for novel  influenza A strains which prompts follow-up testing by state or federal  public health labs with assays such as the US Centers for Disease  Control and Prevention (CDC) swine flu assay.

In the first few days of the spread of the disease, scientists at  Luminex reviewed data provided by public health laboratories in Canada  and the USA, and have internally generated data that indicate that the  xTAG RVP assay is effective in swine flu surveillance. As a result of  the assay's unique ability to simultaneously identify the influenza A  virus matrix gene and specific common seasonal flu subtypes of that  virus, H1 and H3, the Luminex product can be an effective tool in a  public health setting. In this environment, a test with this capability  could prove to be essential for an effective surveillance program.