Biomerieux has revealed that the North Middlesex University Hospital has upgraded its existing Vidas immunoassay analyser to the latest version of the system.
The Vidas is completely random-access and staff can run five or more tests at the same time, with the longest test time just an hour and a quarter.
Tim Huber, senior biomedical scientist in virology, said: 'The current tests routinely run on the Vidas include varicella zoster for chicken pox contacts in pregnancy, cytomegalovirus and toxoplasmosis, rubella and measles.'
He added: 'The good thing about it is that you do not have to run a control every time you put a sample in, as you would on some random-access systems.
'This has considerable cost implications, because we only need to calibrate the controls every fortnight and use just one set of reagents for each test.
'It also comes in handy as a back-up system to confirm positive results from other analysers before they are sent to the reference lab.'
