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news.Corgenix Medical Corporation, a developer and marketer of diagnostic test kits, has announced that the first test kits for viral hemorrhagic fever detection have completed initial clinical testing in West Africa. The new kits could soon help diagnose and prevent the spread of dangerous VHFs such as Lassa fever.
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Corgenix is part of a collaborative group that has developed and patented new recombinant proteins for Lassa virus. The clinical test kits were developed under a $3.8 million grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and were developed by Corgenix in collaboration with Tulane University, the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), BioFactura, Autoimmune Technologies, and various partners in West Africa.
Douglass Simpson, president and CEO, said: “The new tests can be run in just 90 minutes and, unlike current tests, do not require specially designed and engineered Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratories operated by specially trained personnel. These are the first test kits developed in a practical platform that can be used in any clinical laboratory, and you don’t have to grow or transport the actual virus in order to run the tests. As a group we intend to expand this program to address other important infectious agents with both clinical health issues and threat of bioterrorism such as Ebola, Marburg and other hemorrhagic fever viruses.”