The MAScIR Foundation under the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) of Rabat, Morocco, announced, Monday, in Benguerir, that the new diagnostic kit “UM6P-MAScIR MPOX qPCR” was ready to be marketed in Morocco and Africa. Developed by a research team from the Center for Kits, Diagnostics and Medical Devices at the Foundation, this test had been clinically validated by the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and registered with the Directorate of Medicines and Pharmacy (DMP) under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection.
This is an in vitro amplification test based on real-time PCR technology, for the diagnosis of mpox (monkeypox), according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). In a statement to MAP, Nawal Chraibi, Director General of MAScIR, noted that the center’s team within the medical biotechnology center had capitalized on ten years of expertise, recalling that this same research team has registered about ten kits to its credit, including those for tuberculosis, breast cancer, hepatitis C and leukemia.
“This kit is likely to contribute to strengthening the health security of our country and our continent in a context marked by the epidemic outbreak of the new variant of the Mpox virus, which is raging in Africa.” In a similar statement, Pr. Abdeladim Moumen, Director of the Center for Kits, Diagnostics and Medical Devices at the MAScIR Foundation, explained that the advantages of this kit are multiple, a real-time result, the sensitivity and specificities of 100% as well as the multitude of reactions per kit (50 reactions per kit).
The production capacity of this kit at MAScIR amounts to 6 million tests per month.