Only one portable anthrax-detection kit of the five now on the market meets new standards established to help police and other first responders identify the deadly bacterium, an expert group says.
AOAC International (formerly the Association of Official Analytical Chemists) gave the word to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which paid for the analysis after DHS officials questioned the reliability of hand-held kits. AOAC's new standards require a kit to detect the presence of anthrax in a sample that contains at least 1 million anthrax spores and to distinguish accurately between anthrax and related organisms. According to AOAC, only the RAMP Anthrax Test, manufactured by Canada's Response Biomedical Corp., meets these criteria.
"This is going to have a major impact on the first-responder market" by improving reliability, predicts Calvin Chue, a pathogen-detection expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. Adds Stephen Morse, director of Columbia University's Center for Public Health Preparedness, "This is one nice step in the right direction."
