BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO®
Fully automated system for faster blood culture
The first fully automated blood culture system, helping to refine and redesign laboratory workflow to maximize efficiency, while providing faster clinically impactful results.1,2,3
Disclaimer: Product availability varies by country. Please consult your local bioMérieux representative for product availability in your country.
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- System Overview
- Media
- Services & Support
- Specs & Resources
System Overview
BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® opens up a new dimension in blood culture management, delivering fast and reliable results for bloodstream infections.
The system offers an efficient and adaptable workflow with fully automated bottle loading, scanning, incubation and unloading, including blood fill-level measurement. This enables early, sensitive and reliable detection across a broad range of microorganisms in blood and other sterile body fluids. Used with BACT/ALERT® culture media bottles, the smart system maximizes speed of detection while maintaining high analytical sensitivity.
- From 4 to 9 hours faster time to detection1,2
- Advanced automation to free staff resources for higher-value tasks
- Integrates seamlessly into various lab sizes and environments, including sample-reception labs
- Can be used with MAESTRIA™ microbiology software to consolidate blood culture sample data across multiple instrument results and your LIS
Unlock efficiency & ease-of-use
Your laboratory faces some critical challenges: higher volumes, the need to use staff resources effectively and for fast turnaround times. BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® seamlessly integrates your blood culture workflow to meet these challenges, providing efficient and actionable results to help impact better patient outcomes.
Boost your lab’s efficiency
- 360° Smart automated scanning
- Recognizes bottle, sample and patient accession ID labels
- Real-time blood fill-level measurement (in ml) per bottle to monitor inoculated blood volume for each blood culture sample
- Smart incubation for faster, optimized growth
- Closed heating system for thermal stability with continuous monitoring
- Enhanced detection algorithms supporting faster time‑to‑detection for most organisms2,3
- Advanced robotics and automation for 6x faster bottle loading and 14x faster negative bottle unloading4
- Unique Drop & Go concept with automated loading and conveyor
- Automatic negative bottle discarding in weight-monitored waste
- Automated cell calibration
Focus Skilled Resources Where They Add the Most Value
- Automated negative bottle unloading allows staff to focus on added-value samples
- Real-time alerts for non-conforming samples after loading, based on personalized thresholds
- Unsurpassed 24h delayed-entry: reliability that reduces routine manual checks
- Fewer steps and reduced hands-on time time by 63%1
- Intuitive touchscreen offering enhanced ease-of-use and data management
Flexible integration into any lab
- Modular design to meet increasing sample volume needs: capacity evolving from 428 to 1712 bottles
- Space-efficient: best capacity/footprint ratio4 – integrates seamlessly into various lab sizes and environments, including sample-reception labs
Information at Your Fingertips 24/7 with MAESTRIA™
Fully integrated MAESTRIA™ middleware, so you connect to bioMérieux instruments and your LIS to gain a “control tower” perspective to ensure information flows smoothly. This eases the administrative burden and free your time for added value tasks.
- Get the whole picture: information at your fingertips 24/7.
- Consolidate patient data for easier and more powerful reporting.
- Total traceability of blood culture workflow
- Comprehensive blood volume reporting
- Quality indicator monitoring
- Improve blood culture practices with real-time statistics & quality metrics.
References
1. Halperin et al. (2022). Impact of Automated Blood Culture Systems on the Management of Bloodstream Infections: Results from a Crossover Diagnostic Clinical Trial. Microbiology Spectrum
2. Mazulli et al. (2023). Impact of Implementation of BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® on Blood Culture Time to Positivity in Sepsis Patients, Microbiology Spectrum
3. Somily AM. et al. (2018). Time-to-detection of bacteria and yeast with the BACTEC FX versus BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® blood culture systems. Ann Saudi Med
4. Internal R&D study data: BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® vs. BACT/ALERT 3D®
5. Internal data. BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® vs BD BACTEC FX systems comparison.
Blood Culture Media
The BACT/ALERT® 3D system uses BACT/ALERT® culture media specifically designed for blood, biological sterile body fluids, and platelets, as well as dedicated media for mycobacteria detection.
Detection of bloodstream infections is often masked by prior antibiotic exposure, leading to high false negative rates of 40–60% in blood cultures. Our versatile BACT/ALERT® FAN Plus bottles address this challenge through high-capacity resin technology that neutralizes a broad spectrum of antimicrobials, enabling reliable pathogen recovery across all clinical situations.
Without the need for extra steps or specialized bottles, BACT/ALERT® culture media bottles simplify your daily workflow without compromising on quality.
Our unique blood culture media formulation enables proven performance:
- Higher recovery under antibiotic pressure and faster time to detection (TTD) through early organism recovery and fast antibiotic neutralization1-3
- Broad and reliable pathogen detection (including aerobes/anaerobes, fastidious organisms, yeast /filamentous fungi or mold)
- Earlier clinical decisions
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BACT/ALERT® Culture Media Bottles
Innovative & Optimized Culture Media
BACT/ALERT® culture media offers a comprehensive range of media bottles to ensure the recovery of a wide variety of microorganisms including bacteria, mycobacteria, and fungi – including our next generation Fastidious Antimicrobial Neutralization Plus media (FAN® PLUS) offering optimized time to detection and recovery.
Services & Support
Specs & Resources
Technical Specifications
Size:
| Height | Width | Depth | Length | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| in | cm | in | cm | in | cm | in | cm | |
| Instrument (Door Closed) | 77.2* | 196.0* | 28.7 | 73.0 | 35.8 | 91.0 | ||
| Instrument (Door Open) | 77.2* | 196.0* | 37.0 | 94.0 | 65.0 | 165.0 | ||
| Shipping Crate | 89.0 | 226.1 | 36.0 | 91.4 | 48.0 | 121.9 | ||
| Shipping Crate Ramp | 85.0 | 215.9 | ||||||
*Instrument Height dimension does not include optional Warning Light Tower.
Instrument Weight:
| lb | kg | |
|---|---|---|
| Total Shipping Weight | 1084 | 491 |
| Weight of Instrument (empty) | 643 | 292 |
| Weight of Instrument (with bottles) | 707 | 320 |
| Instrument Packaging Weight | 441 | 200 |
