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.

Beginning of November 2023, altona Diagnostics staged their first Health Day in cooperation with German health insurance company BARMER. Around 85 altona employees benefitted from a health check.

December 1 is World AIDS Day. AIDS is caused by the infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Today, viral replication can be suppressed by antiretroviral therapy (ART). With the AltoStar® HIV RT-PCR Kit 1.5, altona provides an CE-marked RT-PCR test to detect and quantify the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) specific RNA (groups M, N and O) in human EDTA plasma.

It’s World Pneumonia Day. Pneumonia is one of the leading infectious causes of death of children. To detect causative pathogens of pneumonia in children, altona supplies labs with real-time PCR assays.

The WHO has released its 2023 Essential Diagnostics List (EDL), a register of in vitro diagnostics (IVD), to support countries in making diagnostic decisions. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) has been added to this list, including a recommendation to use nucleic acid tests (NATs) like PCR assays to diagnose acute HEV infections. One of the mentioned PCR tests in the EDL is the altona RealStar® HEV RT-PCR assay.

The likelihood of transmission of vector-borne diseases in Europe is increasing. Especially dengue fever and West Nile fever but also Zika virus disease and Chikungunya become more important for public health authorities. altona Diagnostics provides different suitable CE-IVD marked RT-PCR kits.