After more than six years at the helm of the Argentine and Brazilian subsidiaries of altona Diagnostics based in Buenos Aires and São Paulo, founding Managing Director Hans Kuhn handed over responsibilities to Mariela Aranda and Julianna Shibao. The change in management has been effective since April 1, 2024.

The AltoStar^® C. auris PCR Kit 1.5 (RUO) is available now. The AltoStar^® C. auris PCR Kit 1.5 is a reagent system, based on real-time PCR technology, for the qualitative detection of Candida auris specific DNA. It is designed for use with the automated AltoStar^® Workflow. The kit is for research use only (RUO).

Alaskapox virus (AKPV) is a new Orthopoxvirus species that caused the first case of severe Alaskapox infection with hospitalization and death in Alaska at the end of January 2024. With the RealStar^® Orthopoxvirus PCR Kit 1.0 you can detect Orthopoxvirus species specific DNA, including the Alaskapox virus.

Timor-Leste (East Timor), a country about 600 km north from Australia, is facing a potential epidemic of mosquito-borne diseases, specifically Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya. altona Diagnostics offers suitable CE-IVD marked RT-PCR kits to combat the potential epidemic.

The World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day 2024 serves as an opportunity to raise awareness to combat these diseases. altona offers a range of ready-to-use CE-marked test kits for the detection of different NTDs, namely the presence of chikungunya virus, dengue virus, and Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease.

To improve the diagnosis of infectious diseases, the University Hospital Essen is collaborating with Poltava State Medical University in Ukraine. altona was approached by the hospital in Essen and provides two AltoStar® automation systems complete with tool kits.