Scientific publications
Zoonoses
Reagena specialises in development and manufacturing of diagnostic products for zoonotic infections. The product portfolio includes Reagena POC, ReaScan rapid tests and EIA tests.
Zoonoses are infectious diseases spread by vectors, such as rodents and insects, causing annually several hundred millions of human infections. Zoonoses cause up to millions of deaths globally each year and many of the diseases, such as rodent- and tick-borne diseases, are endemic in Europe.
There is a need to perform diagnostic zoonosis tests either in central hospital laboratories and/or in smaller healthcare units. Reagena is in a unique position to provide convenient diagnostic test methods for both environments: enzyme immune assays (EIA) for high throughput analysis centres and rapid tests for point-of-care (POC) testing.
Tick-borne encephalitis virus
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) virus belongs to Flaviviruses and it may cause an infection of the central nervous system (CNS). TBE virus, which is found in most European countries, can be transmitted to humans by the bite of hard ticks (e.g. Ixodes ricinus, Ixodes persulcatus).
Symptoms of TBE usually appear in a two-phase course. After an incubation period of 1-2 weeks, flu-like symptoms are developed in the viremic phase of the illness and then a brief symptom-free period occurs. The second phase of the disease may involve the CNS with symptoms of meningitis, meningoencephalitis, meningoencephalomyelitis or meningoencephaloradiculitis.
On average, the severity of the disease increases with patients’ age, and the case-fatality ranges from 1% to 35 % depending on the TBE virus subtype.
Hantaviruses
Currently, over 20 different hantaviruses have been identified worldwide to be human pathogens. Each virus species is carried primarily by a distinct rodent host and the viruses are transmitted to humans via the aerosolised urine, faeces or saliva of chronically infected carrier rodents. Andes virus is the only hantavirus for which person-to-person transmission has been reported. In Asia and Europe hantaviruses cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) whereas the American hantaviruses cause hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).