Diasorin, an Italian multinational global leader in the field of Diagnostics in Vitro, takes the field in what the World Health Organization has declared to be a new one sanitary emergency, monkeypox, announcing a new reagent for its detection.
Technically it is an Analyte Specific Reagent (ASR) primer pair for the detection of the orthopoxvirus B17R/B18R gene, as the monkeypox virus is called.
“The primer pair can be used by clinical laboratories to develop and validate molecular tests for diagnostic purposes,” says the company listed in Milan on the FTSE MIB index, “as well as by non-clinical laboratories to develop and validate tests for research purposes, forensic and other non-clinical purposes”
“We are proud to offer this new ASR that is specific to monkeypox virus,” he said Angel Rago, President of Luminex. “DiaSorin once again confirms its commitment as a diagnostics specialist, demonstrating that it is at the forefront of the fight against emerging diseases”. On the Stock Exchange, the stock rose by 0,15% to 129,40 euros in the late morning
Diasorin new reagents improve test accuracy
From first confirmed case of monkeypox in May 2022, diagnoses increased globally to more than 76.000 in 109 countries, with 28.300 confirmed cases in the United States. “This recent outbreak presents with atypical symptoms that often lead to misdiagnoses, posing a challenge for healthcare professionals,” explains a statement from the company. “In fact, in many cases, typical lesions associated with standard infection do not occur and this has led to the rapid spread of the virus in Europe and North America, with particular evidence in the population at greatest risk. To improve the effectiveness of the control of outbreaks of monkeypox there is, at present, a growing need within clinical laboratories to have tests available highly specific for identifying disease. The new DiaSorin reagent pair offers the possibility to develop your own diagnostic test to identify the infection according to the specific needs of the individual laboratory”.
Monkeypox: for Ops it is still an emergency
Even if cases are no longer growing at the rate of the past months, themonkeypox epidemic continues to meet the criteria to be considered an international health emergency, according to the decreeWHO which, according to its latest update, since the beginning of the epidemic to date there have been 77.934 cases and 36 deaths. “Overall, the conditions which justified the determination of the 'Public Health Emergency of International Concern' they persist, as the monkeypox epidemic continues to be an extraordinary event posing a risk to public health due to international spread,” he wrote the WHO in a note.
THEprogress of the epidemichowever, there are marked differences between high-income and low-income countries. In the former, he explains theWHO, a sharp drop in infections has been observed, but to date, it is not clear whether it was “the adoption of safer sexual behaviors among the highest risk populations; the seasonal reduction of large gatherings […]; increasing pre- and post-exposure vaccination rates; the possible increase in immunity following infection among the highest risk populations”.
On the contrary, in low-income countries, in addition to the reduced possibility of access to diagnostic tools, pharmacies, vaccines, the serious lack of data is worrying: in some areas of Africa, for example, it is currently difficult to determine whether the infections are animal origin or whether it is human-to-human transmission. Also for these reasons, the WHO has currently preferred to adopt a cautious attitude, motivated by "concern about the potential negative consequences that would derive from the withdrawal of the emergency declaration at this moment", we read.
Monkeypox: here are the 10 most affected countries, the USA at the top
According to what the general manager announced on 12 October of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 42 thousand have registered since May cases of monkeypox in the Americas and about 25 in Europe, with the global number of deaths rising to 36; 95% of the patients are men with an average age of 35 and half of them are HIV positive. THE ten most affected countries (with overall 87% of total cases) are United States (26.723), Brazil (8.147), Spain (7.209), France (4.043), Great Britain (3.654), Germany (3.640), Peru (2.587), Colombia (2.453), Mexico (1.968) and Canada (1.400).
