A Singapore life sciences company has developed a portable test-kit which can identify, from the sequence perspective, the variant strain of H1N1 virus within two hours.

The test-kit, which named Vereflu, is a lab-on-chip application for rapid detection of all major influenza types at the point of need, the producing company Veredus Laboratories told Xinhua in a written interview recently.

"VereFlu is a molecular diagnostic test that integrates onto a biochip both Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and microarray technology." said Daniel Floerke, the sales and marketing director for Veredus.

Explaining the principle of the VereFlu, Floerke said, "When simplified, it is to take a throat swab from a suspected case and isolate the DNA/RNA."

"This DNA/RNA sample size is a very small amount of material, so before you can test the sample, you need to increase its size or copy number. This is done by using the molecular biology technique called Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), which can increase your sample size (DNA/RNA) into the millions of copies," said Floerke.

"For VereFlu, we run it across a microarray that is, basically speaking, a library of DNA/RNA for just influenza. When a sample finds its match in the library, we know we have a match for that strain of influenza," he added.

He said that the VereFlu chip can detect, differentiate and identify not only the current H1N1 2009 strain, but various strains of influenza.

"We can detect and differentiate for influenza A: H1, H3, H5, H7, H9 with subtypes ID's of H1N1, H3N2, H5N1 and H9N2 and influenza B," he said.

He said that the integration of both PCR and microarray technology onto a biochip has increased the speed and accuracy to get an answer to several questions from one sample.

Sample can be taken from a throat swab or nasal swab, and it can be performed outside the traditional laboratory environment. "Once the sample is purified, you can have an answer within two hours," he said.

Each Vereflu test will cost between US$100 and US$180. The producing company said that it has received orders from at least six countries.