When the world is terrorized with H5N1 avian flu virus and other emerging new infections, the health watchdogs need to get equipped with a quicker detection procedure. Cuing on this line of concern, U.S. researchers have developed a new device – called the T5000 – that can help big hospitals watch for outbreaks of dangerous drug-resistant infections.
The researchers hope, the new technique will also be able to keep up with the virus, even if it is a new variant of H5N1 that has been circulating from last year. The device is fine-tuned by Carlsbad, Californina-based Ibis — a Isis Pharmaceuticals division – jointly with U.S. military researchers. It has also been successfully tested against a range of flu viruses – a generally difficult-to-monitor bug.
This new detector may soon replace the precise flu strain’s not-so-easy spot tests, as well as the testing of people for H5N1 flu virus, for which the World Health Organization needs specialized labs and takes weeks to growing and then tests the tiny virus samples.
But, the new mass spectrometer device takes just four hours to identify the precise strain! This is pretty short a time, compared to the prevailing time-taking tests.
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