On 3 April 2013, the China Health and Family Planning Commission notified WHO of an additional four cases of human infection with influenza A(H7N9). The four patients are from Jiangsu province in eastern China. There is no link between the cases.

To date, the total number of confirmed cases of human infection with influenza A(H7N9) virus in China is seven. Three confirmed cases were reported earlier from Shanghai and Anhui provinces, including two deaths.The patients include a 45-year-old woman with illness onset on 19 March 2013; a 48-year-old woman with illness onset on 19 March 2013; an 83-year-old man with illness onset on 20 March 2013; and a 32-year-old woman with illness onset on 21 March 2013. All of these patients are in a critical condition.

More than 160 close contacts of these four cases in Jiangsu province are being closely monitored. Thus far, none of them have developed any symptoms of illness. Retrospective investigation is ongoing into two contacts of one of the cases reported earlier from Shanghai. Both of these contacts developed symptoms of illness; one died and the other recovered. No laboratory confirmation is available for these two contacts.

The Chinese government is actively investigating this event and has heightened disease surveillance for early detection, diagnosis and treatment. Infection prevention and control has been strengthened in health-care settings. Communication efforts between human and animal health and industry sectors have increased. The government has advised the population to maintain good personal hygiene, including frequent handwashing and avoiding direct contact with sick or dead animals.

WHO is in contact with national authorities and is following the event closely. The WHO-coordinated international response is also focusing on work with WHO Collaborating Centres for Reference and Research on Influenza and other partners to ensure that information is available and that materials are developed for diagnosis and treatment and vaccine development. No vaccine is currently available for this subtype of the influenza virus. Preliminary test results provided by the WHO Collaborating Centre in China suggest that the virus is susceptible to the neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir and zanamivir).

At this time there is no evidence of ongoing human-to-human transmission.

WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry with regard to this event, nor does it recommend that any travel or trade restrictions be applied.

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1. Intended Use 

Avian influenza virus H7N9 real time RT-PCR kit is used for the detection of gene H7 and gene N9 of avian influenza A subtype H7N9 in human nasal and pharyngeal secretions and bird fece by using real time PCR systems.

2. Principle of Real-Time PCR

The principle of the real-time detection is based on the fluorogenic 5’nuclease assay. During the PCR reaction, the DNA polymerase cleaves the probe at the 5’ end and separates the reporter dye from the quencher dye only when the probe hybridizes to the target DNA. This cleavage results in the fluorescent signal generated by the cleaved reporter dye, which is monitored real-time by the PCR detection system. The PCR cycle at which an increase in the fluorescence signal is detected initially (Ct) is proportional to the amount of the specific PCR product. Monitoring the fluorescence intensities during Real Time allows the detection of the accumulating product without having to re-open the reaction tube after the amplification.

3. Product Description

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) caused by certain subtypes of influenza A virus in animal populations, particularly chickens, poses a continuing global human public health risk. Direct human infection by an avian influenza A (H5N1) virus was first recognized during the 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong. The avian influenza virus H7N9 is one subgroup among the larger group of H7 viruses. Some cases of human infection with H7N9 virus in China are confirmed till early April of 2013.

Avian influenza virus H7N9 real time RT-PCR kit contains a specific ready-to-use system for the detection of avian influenza virus H7N9 by Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) in the real-time PCR system. The master contains Super Mix for the specific amplification of the avian influenza virus H7N9 RNA. The reaction is done in one step real time RT-PCR. The first step is a reverse transcription (RT), during which the avian influenza virus H9 RNA is transcribed into cDNA. Afterwards, a thermostable DNA polymerase is used to amplify the specific gene fragments by polymerase chain reaction. Fluorescence is emitted and measured by the real time systems´ optical unit during the PCR. The detection of amplified avian influenza virus H7N9 DNA fragment is performed in fluorimeter channel FAM and HEX/VIC/JOE with the fluorescent quencher BHQ1. In addition, the kit contains a system to identify possible PCR inhibition by measuring the FAM fluorescence of the internal control (IC).

 4. Kit Contents

Analysis sensitivity: 1×10³copies/ml；

Note: Analysis sensitivity depends on the sample volume, elution volume, nucleic acid extraction methods and other factors .If you use the RNA extraction kits recommended, the analysis sensitivity is the same as it declares. However, when the sample volume is dozens or even hundreds of times greater than elution volume by some concentrating method, it can be much.

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A single drug may be an effective therapy for a number of different viral diseases such as Ebola and rabies, a new study published in Cell Chemistry and Biology.

John Connor - a virologist at the University of Boston, USA, and co-author of the article, explains that his research team study the vesicular stomatitis virus, a close relative of the Ebola virus, but not as deadly. It turns out that several viruses, including rabies, mumps, vesicular stomatitis virus and NICA (deadly pathogen spread by bats) use the same method to reproduce in human cells. This led scientists to start looking for a substance that can stop the replication process of these viruses.

The result - the first broad-spectrum antiviral compound that stops the playback of a variety of viruses through disruption of the synthesis of viral ribonucleic acid. Although up to a medicinal product used in humans will probably take at least several years of laboratory research and as many clinical studies, the discovery is a major breakthrough in anti-infective and, in particular - antivirus, therapy with the potential to change the treatment of many of the most serious viral diseases.

The Cysticercosis Antigen (Ag) ELISA (Ref. 650501) is a sandwich Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay based on monoclonal antibodies for the qualitative determination of viable metacestodes (cysticerci) of Taenia spp. in human and porcine serum samples.

-  Analytical sensitivity: 1 cyst is detectable in certain conditions
- Incubation times: assay 45 minutes + sample prep <30 minutes
- Available format: 96T

Taenia solium cysticercosis is an infection of humans and pigs with metacestode larvae (cysticercus) of Taenia solium. Circulating antigen detection in serum is an important diagnostic method that indicates the presence of viable parasites. The monoclonal antibodies used in this assay are produced against excretory secretory products (ESP) of viable T. saginata cysticerci. The glycoprotein antigens detected by these monoclonal antibodies are present on the tegument and in the excretory secretory products of metacestodes.

The assay demonstrates the presence of viable cysticerci only, it does not detect degenerated or calcified cysticerci. In this respect, unlike antibody detection, measurement of circulating antigen levels allows differentiation of cysticercosis cases with viable parasites, with antigen levels correlating to the numbers and size of lesions. It can as such also provide a tool for serological monitoring of antiparasitic therapy in human or pigs: antigen levels drop rapidly after successful anthelminthic treatment.

Porcine cysticercosis

The assay is genus specific, not species specific. The assay does not allow the differentiation between infections of different Taenia species in pigs. In experimentally infected pigs, circulating antigens were first detected between 2 and 6 weeks post infection and remained present generally throughout an observation period of 6 months, even in pigs carrying only five to eight living cysts. The minimum number of living cysts, that could be detected using the Cysticercosis Ag ELISA, was one.

Human cysticercosis

Because T. solium is the only Taenia sp. causing cysticercosis in man, the test is specific. No cross-reactions were observed with sera from patients with other parasitologically and/or serologically confirmed infections. The sensitivity of the assay decreases when the number of viable cysts is low; infections with one viable cyst are often not detectable. Antigen levels are generally higher in extraparenchymal neurocysticercosis (NCC) (particularly subarachnoid NCC) than in intraparenchymal NCC; therefore, high antigen levels should lead one to suspect the presence of extraparenchymal NCC.

Download datasheet

FDA issued a permit for use of the new product Tenex Health - TX1 - a system to remove damaged or necrotic tissue. This application will allow a wide range of surgical procedures and interventions - abdominal surgery, orthopedic surgery, laparoscopy, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

The company currently offers products for the treatment of damaged tissue in the tendons in chronic tendon pain. INSTRUMENTS is the size of a pen and allows surgeons to supply energy in the form of ultrasonic waves through a needle that cuts and removes only the dead tissue. The whole procedure was carried out for 20 minutes under local anesthetic.

Each year in the U.S. alone, the number of operations in tendon pain is over 10 million. Extending the testimony of multiple device will increase its applicability and convenience for physicians and patients, and the quality of the manipulation.

According to Jill Foosball - Executive Director of Tenex Health, the device allows surgery at an early stage of the disease, allowing for faster, easier and more effective treatment and faster return patients to their daily activities. He said TH1 offers unique advantages - minimum invasiveness, which means speed, efficiency and safety of the procedures with minimal recovery time.

The company designs and other products for minimally invasive surgery for the treatment of soft tissue injuries when bursitis, carpal tunnel surgery syndrome and post surgical adhesions.

WITHIN just eight days of starting a novel gene therapy, David Aponte's "incurable" leukaemia had vanished. For four other patients, the same happened within eight weeks, although one later died from a blood clot unrelated to the treatment, and another after relapsing. The cured trio, who were all previously diagnosed with usually fatal relapses of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, have now been in remission for between 5 months and 2 years. Michel Sadelain of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, co-leader of the group that designed the trial, says that a second trial of 50 patients is being readied, and the team is looking into using the technique to treat other cancers.

The key to the new therapy is identifying a molecule unique to the surface of cancer cells, then genetically engineering a patient's immune cells to attack it. In acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, immune cells called B-cells become malignant. The team were able to target a surface molecule known as CD19 that is only present on B-cells. Doctors extracted other immune cells called T-cells from the patients. These were treated with a harmless virus, which installed a new gene redirecting them to attack all cells bearing CD19. When the engineered T-cells were reinfused into the patients, they rapidly killed all B-cells, cancerous or otherwise.

"The stunning finding was that in all five patients, tumours were undetectable after the treatment," says Sadelain. He reckons that the body should replenish the immune system with regular T-cells and healthy B-cells after a couple of months. However, the patients received donated bone marrow to ensure they could regrow a healthy immune system.

The treatment is not the first to re-engineer T-cells to attack a form of leukaemia. Last year, an international company called Adaptimmune used the approach to treat 13 people with multiple myeloma – it left 10 in remission. "Although it's early days for these trials, the approach of modifying a patient's T-cells to attack their cancer is looking increasingly like one that will, in time, have a place alongside more traditional treatments," says Paul Moss of Cancer Research UK. Sadelain's team is now investigating the scope for attacking other cancers. Where no single surface molecule is unique to a cancer, he is seeking to target pairs of molecules that only occur together on cancer cells. In January, he demonstrated this approach by wiping out human prostate tumours implanted in mice, using T-cells engineered to target two surface molecules.

The hands of French apiarist Andre Frieh hold jars of coloured honey at his home in Ribeauville near Colmar Eastern France, October 5, 2012. (Reuters/Vincent Kessler)

While providing a thorough overview of the observed objects, optical microscopes are limited by so-called. diffraction barrier, why microscope can not distinguish two separate objects if they are at a distance of less than about 200 nm. This microscope is not simple, says Gizmodo.

Combining powerful optics and advanced algorithms to recreate the image, DeltaVision OMX Blaze General Electric Company allows us to peer into the microscopic world and remain amazed by it.

Established in 2011, DeltaVision OMX Blaze worth 1.2 million dollars. "Some of us jokingly started calling him OMG, after seeing images that can produce it," says Jane Stout of the Medical Faculty of the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

In footage shown here winning Elestric General Healthcare Life Sciences 2012 Imaging Competition.

"Amphibian horror" isn't a movie genre, but on this evidence perhaps it should be. Harvard biologists have described a bizarre, hairy frog with cat-like extendable claws.Trichobatrachus robustus actively breaks its own bones to produce claws that puncture their way out of the frog's toe pads, probably when it is threatened. David Blackburn and colleagues at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, think the gruesome behaviour is a defence mechanism. The researchers say there are salamanders that force their ribs through their skin to produce protective barbs on demand, but nothing quite like this mechanism has been seen before. The feature is also found in nine of the 11 frogs belonging to the Astylosternusgenus, most of which live in Cameroon.

Instant weapon

"Some other frogs have bony spines that project from their wrist, but in those species it appears that the bones grow through the skin rather than pierce it when needed for defence," says Blackburn. At rest, the claws of T. robustus, found on the hind feet only, are nestled inside a mass of connective tissue. A chunk of collagen forms a bond between the claw's sharp point and a small piece of bone at the tip of the frog's toe. The other end of the claw is connected to a muscle. Blackburn and his colleagues believe that when the animal is attacked, it contracts this muscle, which pulls the claw downwards. The sharp point then breaks away from the bony tip and cuts through the toe pad, emerging on the underside.

Hirsute horror

The end result may look like a cat's claw, but the breaking and cutting mechanism is very different and unique among vertebrates. Also unique is the fact that the claw is just bone and does not have an outer coating of keratin like other claws do. Because Blackburn has only studied dead specimens, he says he does not know what happens when the claw retracts - or even how it retracts. It does not appear to have a muscle to pull it back inside so the team think it may passively slide back into the toe pad when its muscle relaxes. "Being amphibians, it would not be surprising if some parts of the wound heal and the tissue is regenerated," says Blackburn. Males of the species, which grows to about 11 centimetres, also produce long hair-like strands of skin and arteries when they breed (see image). It is thought that the "hairs" allow them to take in more oxygen through their skin while they take care of their brood.

Spiky snack

In Cameroon, they are roasted and eaten. Hunters use long spears and machetes to kill the frogs, apparently to avoid being hurt by their claws. "This is an incredible story," says Ian Stephen, curator of herpetology at the Zoological Society of London, UK. "Some frogs grow spines on their thumbs during breeding season, but this is entirely different." "For me, it highlights the need for a lot more research on amphibians especially in light of the threat of mass extinctions," he adds. The existence of frogs with erectile claws like cats was first described by Belgian zoologist George Boulenger in 1900 in frogs found in the French Congo, now the Republic of Congo.