bioMérieux Pandemic Preparedness 

bioMérieux is contributing its expertise in infectious disease diagnostics to the global effort to address the Influenza A/H1N1 pandemic.  

Ensuring product supply to continue to protect patients
We are committed to ensuring consistent supply of critical products and have established a Business Continuity Plan, which will enable us to continue to manufacture products in the event of a major influenza outbreak. bioMérieux is currently building stock of specific reagents to face the global demand.

Protecting our employees
We consider ourselves to have a clear responsibility to protect our employees and have provided them with an extensive pandemic information and prevention plan.

New product development
We are adapting our molecular NucliSENS EasyQ® Influenza A/B test to include the new H1N1 strain.

Support through our current product offering
bioMérieux is distributing Quidel’s QuickVue® Influenza A+B, which provide results in under 10 minutes. This test has been shown to detect culture isolates of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus. The U.S. FDA has authorized Quidel to include this information in the QuickVue Influenza A+B Test package insert. A clinical study is underway to establish the performance of the QuickVue test in routine clinical testing.

To identify the type of flu virus, at many public health laboratories in the world, bioMérieux’s NucliSENS® easyMAG® instrument is being used for extraction of nucleic acids, the first step in molecular diagnostic testing.

When patients present with symptoms of ILI (Influenza-Like Illness), it is important to rapidly determine the origin of the disease to rule out bacterial infection, prescribe appropriate treatment and provide recommendations to avoid transmission. We provide several tests such as:

• Blood culture, with BacT/ALERT® and ID/AST with VITEK® 2, which will detect bacteria in the event of bacterial LRTI (lower respiratory tract infection)
• Measurement of procalcitonin (PCT) levels with VIDAS® B.R.A.H.M.S PCT to rapidly assess if the infection is of bacterial origin and provide information on prognosis.

We are also ramping up production and supply capacity to support customers in the vaccine industry who use the company’s culture media range for the control and release of vaccines.

For additional information see CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/guidance/rapid_testing.htm