Three of the Aquarius team have recently co-authored an article on the rapid detection of respiratory viruses in a hospital paediatric ward. The article, entitled “Performance of a novel point-of-care molecular assay for the detection of Influenza A, B, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus”, can be found in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, online first.
This article was the result of a joint effort between Aquarius Population Health, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and Enigma Diagnostics who provided the assay. It assesses the performance of the new point-of-care Enigma® MiniLab™ assay for Influenza A, B and RSV compared to a centralised laboratory respiratory virus panel. The positive per cent agreement was >95% for Influenza B and RSV but was 79.2% (95% CI 57.8-92.9%) for Influenza A, and the negative per cent agreement was >95% for Influenza A and B, and 94.5% (95% CI 91.9-96.4%) for RSV. The turnaround time for the laboratory respiratory virus panel was 24 hours, compared to ~90 minutes for the Enigma® MiniLab™ test.
Another paper is currently being prepared out of the same study that presents the effect the introduction of the test had on antibiotic prescribing, length of stay, and reimbursement in the paediatric respiratory ward.
Douthwaite ST, Walker C, Adams EJ, et al. Performance of a novel point-of-care molecular assay for the detection of Influenza A, B and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (Enigma® MiniLab™) in children with acute respiratory infection. JCM, online first 11 Nov 2015. doi: 10.1128/JCM.02887-15