The Basque biocompany Vacunek has developed a diagnostic kit for the detection of the A/H1N1 virus which is causing the new flu, using molecular biology PCR techniques. The great competitive advantage of the Vacunek kit is its ability to differentiate between the new A/H1N1 strain of flu in North America and the H1N1 strains that are currently in circulation in Europe and Asia.

As a result, the kit created by Vacunek will contribute to increasing the capacity for testing for this new virus, making it possible to confirm the number of cases reported and offering a more precise vision of the situation of the new illness in our county. Vacunek’s new product adds to the existing kit made by the company for the detection of bird flu H5N1 (Hegazin-VK).

The A/H1N1 flu virus is a new influenza virus in the Orthomyxoviridae family, which causes the illness in humans. This April, the new virus was detected for the first time in Mexico and was initially given the common name of ‘swine flu’. Many other countries, including the United States, Canada and Spain have also confirmed cases of this disease in humans. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified the infection by the new flu virus as a pandemic. Recently, a case of transmission of this virus from humans to pigs has also been detected in Canada.

Vacunek is a biotechnology company based in the Bizkaia Technology Park, and is a spin-off of the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker-Tecnalia), which works in the applied biosciences sector of animal health, developing products designed for the diagnosis, therapy and prevention of illnesses in farm livestock.