Rapid test for the 'superbug', a serious agent of healthcare-aquired infection, can achieve in five hours what current microbiological methods take two days to deliver
Acolyte Biomedica, a company spun out of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Science and Technology Laboratories (DSTL) at Porton Down, has announced the launch of the BacLite Rapid MRSA test.
Salisbury District Hospital takes delivery of the first system at the end of May.
Giving same-day results, the BacLite Rapid MRSA test will allow hospitals to screen patients for the presence of the so-called superbug.
This information will enable infection control teams to act quickly to prevent a hospital acquired infection.
Healthcare acquired infections, of which MRSA is the most significant, are estimated to cause 5000 deaths in the UK each year; by being able to act quickly, hospitals can reduce significantly the incidence of mortality and morbidity.
In addition MRSA costs the NHS around £1 billion pa, so reducing the incidence of the infection is poised to have a major financial impact.
The final evaluation of the BacLite system at three UK laboratories including those at Barts and the London and Salisbury District NHS Trusts, showed the test can achieve in five hours what current microbiological methods take two days to deliver.
Commenting on the launch, Bill Mullen, company CEO, said "We expect this test to offer a rapid and cost effective screening method at an important time in the fight against MRSA".
The test has the same performance as current culture based methods but delivers the results in hours rather than days.
In a multi centre trial of 1377 nasal swabs the sensitivity of the test was 93.4% and specificity was 95.8%.
The study illustrates the confidence that medical staff could have when using BacLite Rapid MRSA test information for admitting patients; the probability that a negative result was correct (negative predictive value) was over 99%.
