SubscribeThe national debate about the level of MRSA infections occurring in hospital patients up and down the country continues to rage, and hospital clinicians are treating this deadly infection on a daily basis.
Early detection and diagnosis is essential in the fight against MRSA, and Acolyte Biomedica, a young company based in Salisbury, has taken the AK Rapid technology originally developed by the Ministry of Defence's establishment at Porton Down in the fight against biological warfare, and created an exciting new screening process.
BacLite Rapid is a fast MRSA test, delivering results in five hours directly from the patient swab, which enables hospitals and other healthcare establishments to rapidly screen patients for the presence of the MRSA 'superbug'.
This compares highly favourably with the labour and time intensive culture based testing techniques which do not exclude MRSA for 48 hours, and may take a further 24 to 48 hours to confirm positive cultures. During this time, infection control measures such as isolation may be applied unnecessarily or, if not applied, unidentified MRSA positive individuals remain a hidden source of potentially life threatening cross infection.
Camspec is the UK's leading specialist supplier of UV/Visible Spectrophotometers, and its instruments, with their enviable reputation for product design and application innovation, were the preferred choice of Acolyte Biomedica when it established production of BacLite Rapid MRSA. The Camspec M501 UV/Visible Spectrophotometer is used for in-process testing of reagents.
BacLite Rapid MRSA comprises two instrument units - a wash module and a read module - along with a reagent kit for performing the test in microtitre plates.
Camspec Managing Director, Dr Tony Moss, is proud of the role the company's spectrophotometers play in the manufacture of products such as this, saying: "Camspec spectrophotometers are increasingly being specified by companies involved in production processes which need to be constantly monitored to prove they are 'fit for purpose' through the maintenance of exacting international standards."
Details of all Camspec's products can be found at www.camspec.co.uk.