Simplexa VZV Direct Kit

Background

Varicella-zoster virus infection causes two clinically distinct forms of disease, depending on whether an individual is experiencing a primary (chickenpox) or secondary infection (shingles). Varicella-zoster virus is highly contagious, spread by exposure to an individual shedding virus from either a varicella or herpes zoster infection. The virus can be spread from person to person by direct contact, inhalation of aerosols from vesicular fluid of skin lesions of acute varicella or zoster and possibly through infected respiratory secretions that also may be aerosolized.

Common complications of VZV infection are bacterial infections of the skin and soft tissue in children and pneumonia in adults. Severe complications include encephalitis, pneumonia (either direct viral pneumonia or secondary bacterial pneumonia), bronchitis (either viral bronchitis or secondary bacterial bronchitis), visceral dissemination (VZV infection of internal organs) and postherpetic neuralgia in immunocompromised individuals. Varicella-zoster virus can also complicate pregnancy; newborns of infected mothers have a small risk of developing congenital varicella syndrome or neonatal varicella.

Moreover VZV is now recognized as one of the leading causes of adult encephalitis and in several encephalitis studies, VZV was the second most common etiology identified, second only to HSV. It is estimated that greater than 90 percent of the population will acquire the disease by the age of 15 and each of these persons is at risk for developing encephalitis caused by VZV

Why to choose it

A CLIA moderate complexity assay for the direct detection of the VZV DNA Polymerase gene from only 50 µl of CSF sample. The assay improves efficiency with a true sample-to-answer workflow without DNA extraction.

Benefits

Reliability

The Simplexa VZV Direct assay demonstrated high performance with excellent clinical agreement against PCR/bi-directional sequencing for CSF samples.

SIMPLEXA VZV DIRECT CLINICAL AGREEMENT STUDY

The two faslse positive samples were contrived positive samples which were spiked using the Ellen strain at 30 copies/reaction (2X LoD)

Low Volume

Our Simplexa VZV Direct assay utilizes only 50 µl of precious CSF sample.

For use on

LIAISON MDX

Ordering Info

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Simplexa VZV Direct Brochure