Archived News

This site is a B2B information site for professional use - clinical diagnostics products listed are for Research Use Only unless otherwise stated.

Browse this rapidmicrobiology special focus on automation and ergonomics in the microbiology lab

Prepare Your Lab for the EHEC Outbreak

go back to news archives

Several European countries are facing an unprecedented outbreak of a new strain of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC).

The University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf and BGI-Shenzhen in Beijing have successfully sequenced the strain, identifying it as a new serotype: E. coli O104:H4. Like many pathogenic strains of E. coli, O104:H4 produces verotoxins, also called Shiga toxins, which cause severe gastro-intestinal symptoms, as well as the life-threatening hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). Rapid and reliable testing for verotoxin-producing E. coli is crucial during an outbreak of this nature.

QIAGEN's mericon VTEC assay safely detects all verotoxin-producing E. coli strains.

Our mericon VTEC Kit is a complete assay. It contains all of the required reagents to run your analysis for these toxic E. coli strains. You do not need to order additional enzymes or primer/probes.

A negative result with this assay means that your sample does not contain any verotoxin-producing E. coli strains, including the new O104:H4 strain. If you get a positive result and you want to identify the specific strain, further testing is necessary.

For further technical information, please contact QIAGEN Technical Service, and for further commercial information please contact your local QIAGEN representative