Staphylococcus aureus is a common bacteria present on the skin and mucous membranes in 20-30% of healthy people. This bacteria is known for causing infections in different districts of the organism as skin, open wounds, respiratory and urinary tracts.
Some strains called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have developed a resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics which are used in the treatment of numerous infections diseases and therefore difficult to eradicate.
MRSA is transmitted to humans mainly by direct contact with the infected person or with medical instruments and devices. MRSA is troublesome in hospitals where patients with a weakened immune system are more susceptible to infection than the general population.

FROM SAMPLING TO MRSA SCREENING WITH LIGHT SCATTERING TECHNOLOGY

1. The PENOK SWAB and HB&L MRSA KIT are conceived for the collection and the rapid detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in nasal, inguinal, rectal, throat, skin and wound swab samples.
2. PENOK SWAB is the new patent-pending device for the collection of samples with a specific hollow cotton swab.
3. A simple squeeze of the tube allows to carefully aspirate the selective media for the MRSA.
4. The flow of the aspired media through the swab allows the spread of bacteria in nutrient broth.
5. PENOK SWAB can be loaded directly into Alfred60AST system to perform the analysis within 6,5 hours in fully automation.
6. Using the patented technology based on light scattering Alifax systems are able to monitor the bacteria repli cation activity from the inoculum step into selective culture broth providing real time growth curves.
7. Positive MRSA results are reported in CFU/ml.
8. Broths are in sterile vials with pierceable screw cap.
9. Samples are incubated at 37°C and constantly mixed avoiding sedimentation, flotation and growth anomalies typical of several micro-organisms.

PERFORMANCES

The results obtained in two independent evaluation studies show excellent agreement with conventional standard methods giving specificity of 100%, sensitivity >89% and negative predictive value of 100% and positive predictive value >98%. All the samples evaluated positive with the HB&L system were confirmed by coagulase test and the detection of specific protein PBP2a.
In both studies 65% of all positive samples were detected within only 3 hours and in 6,5 hours also the small count samples were fully detected.