Singapore, November 7, 2007: South Korean medical devices company Seegene has unveiled a diagnostic test tool that it claims can simultaneously detect the most common bacteria and viruses causing sexually transmitted disease (STD).

 

The Seeplex STD/HPV test screens for Chlamydia Trachomatis (CT), Neisseria Gonorrhea (NG), as well as 14 Human Papillomaviruses (HPV) high-risk types and 5 HPV low risk types in a single reaction tube, at the price point of a single pathogen test using the same sample.

 

“Current clinical STD and HPV screening procedures are not cost efficient, using a separate test to detect each indication for CT, NG, HPV High Risk, and HPV Low Risk. Since STD infections have a high co-infection rate (with afflicted individuals exhibiting more than one STD infection), and HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer, clinical healthcare systems need an effective and economical diagnostic tool, one capable of detecting the most prevalent STD and HPV pathogens with a single test,” Seegene said in a prepared press material.

 

The Seeplex STD/HPV diagnostic test enables healthcare providers to quickly, accurately and cost-effectively determine most prevalent STD/HPV infections in patients. Armed with this diagnostic information, physicians will be able to write better prescriptions, and clinicians can provide the best course of treatment.

 

“Since most STD and HPV cause no noticeable symptoms, they go undetected.  These asymptomatic infections can be diagnosed only through testing. Therefore, the only way to slow the spread of STD/HPV along with their dangerous effects, like cervical cancer, is to provide routine and ubiquitous screening programs,” said Jong-Yoon Chun, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Seegene.

 

According to a study in the February 28, 2007 issue of JAMA, approximately one in four US females between the ages of 14 and 59 years is at risk for sexually transmitted infections, which typically exhibit no visible symptoms. High-risk HPV types are detected in 99 percent of cervical cancers and HPV types 16 and 18 cause over 70 percent of cervical cancers.  Alarmingly, individuals diagnosed positive for HPV are on average infected with up to five different types of HPVs.

 

These extremely high STD infection rates among the general population place an enormous financial burden upon healthcare systems and on patient point of care systems. Supporting this assertion, The Center for Disease

Control’s (CDC) computer model of the cost of STD infections estimates that the 9.1 million new STD infections among 15-to-24-year-olds in the

United States in the year 2000 cost $6.5 billion in direct medical costs.