Focus on Flu Responding to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic Spring 2009 opened with a global threat – the first pandemic flu in 40 years for which there was no known public immunity. The novel H1N1 influenza A virus challenged public health professionals and diagnosticians across the globe. Focus Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics' infectious disease company, introduced the first commercially available diagnostic test in the United States within weeks of the announcement. Focus worked closely with vaccine developers responding to a global flu strain emerging outside the normal course of seasonal influenza.
| Standardized with WHO and CDC reference methods |
Custom assay development and validation |
ILI and Efficacy studies |
|
- HAI (hemagglutination inhibition)
- Microneutralization
- Antigen Validation
- SRH (single radial hemolysin
|
- Antibody subclasses
- Multianalyte assays
- Functional assays
|
- Real-time PCR
- Subtyping PCR
- Culture (rapid and conventional)
- Genotyping (sequencing)
- Strain typing
- Antiviral phenotyping
|
Vaccine/Pathogen |
Testing Method |
Smallpox (vaccinia) |
Microneutralization
|
| Japanese Encephalitis Virus |
PRNT |
| Influenza (flu) vaccine(s) |
Hemagglutination inhibition |
| Poliovirus |
Viral neutralization |
| Pneumococcus |
Opsonophagocytosis |
| West Nile Virus |
PRNT, IFA |
| St. Louis Encephalitis Virus, La Crosse Virus |
PRNT, IFA |
