China began on Monday to batch-produce a new gene-based reagent
capable of quickly diagnosing severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS).
At a news briefing, Wang Shushan, deputy director of Henan
Provincial Bureau of Science and Technology, said that the State
Food and Drug Administration has approved the reagent for
production and medical purposes.
The Henan Provincial Bio-Engineering Technology Research Center,
the Viral Disease Prevention and Control Institute of the China
Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Huamei Bio-Engineering Company
jointly developed the reagent. These organizations hold full
intellectual property rights to the new product.
Wang Yunlong, a specialist who participated in the development
of the reagent, said that it can monitor 50 variations of the SARS
virus under any condition and will be an efficient tool in the
control of a public health crisis. In addition to clinical
diagnosis and virus identification, the reagent can be used to
assess the effect of vaccines, clinical blood tests, surveys of
epidemics and effectiveness of treatment.
The SARS reagent will hit the market soon.
China was hit hard by an outbreak of SARS in 2003, when 5,327
cases were reported on the mainland and 349 people died.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2004)