(Reuters) -Diagnostics firm Labcorp said that it was working with U.S. health regulators to monitor the mpox outbreak and has the capacity to significantly increase testing in the country if needed.
The company is processing approximately 500 mpox tests a month but can scale up to around 25,000 per month, Marcia Eisenberg, Labcorp’s chief scientific officer, told Reuters in an emailed statement.
Labcorp’s FDA-cleared, physician-ordered polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test detects all non-smallpox related orthopoxviruses, including mpox. The test also detects the new strain of clade Ib mpox.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization declared mpox a global public health emergency, its highest form of alert, for the second time in two years, because of an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that had spread to other countries.
A new form of the virus has triggered global concern as it seems to spread easily though routine close contact.
(Reporting by Sneha S K; Editing by Alan Barona)
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