Herpes simplex virus survived in Virocult transport tubes and had a half-life of 3.5 days at 2°C and 2.75 days at 22°C. Of 2,000 consecutive clinical specimens transported on Virocult tubes and cultured for herpes simplex virus, 448 (22.4%) were positive. Comparison of the holding times between positive and negative cultures, up to 12 days, revealed no significant loss of positive cultures with time.

In a comparative study, clinical specimens were cultured for herpes simplex virus (HSV). The presence of virus was noted by the appearance of characteristic cytopathic effect, as determined by standard direct immunofluorescence techniques, by using a direct immunoperoxidase stain for viral antigen, or by using the Selecticult-HSV (SC-HSV) stain for viral antigen. There was 100% correlation between the SC-HSV stain and immunofluorescence staining in recognizing HSV-infected cells (81 of 81 positive specimens). In comparison with observation of cytopathic effect, the SC-HSV system and conventional culture detected 93 and 78% of positive cultures at 48 h postinoculation and 76 and 32%, respectively, at 24 h. By 5 days postinoculation, SC-HSV detected 100% of the positive specimens. As compared with the direct immunoperoxidase stain, SC-HSV stain was slightly more sensitive and gave less background stain. HSV serotypes 1 and 2 were both detected by the SC-HSV stain. The Scott SC-HSV kit appears to be an effective system for the diagnosis of HSV infections.

A new chlamydia transport medium (ChlamydiaPort; Scott Laboratories, Inc., Fiskeville, R.I.) was evaluated for its suitability as a transport medium for herpes simplex virus (HSV). Two laboratory HSV strains (McIntyre and 333) and two clinical isolates (AO218 and A0301) were suspended in ChlamydiaPort, ViraPort (Scott Laboratories), and cell culture medium and maintained at 2 and 22°C. Samples were tested at various time intervals to determine surviving virus. The range of half-lives of the HSV strains held at 2°C in ChlamydiaPort medium was from 3.5 to 10 days, while virus stability was greater in ViraPort and less in cell culture medium. These HSV strains held at 22°C in ChlamydiaPort had half-lives from 1.5 to 6 days, which were significantly greater than the half-lives of the viruses held in either tissue culture medium or ViraPort. Clinical specimens were tested for virus by using the Selecticult-HSV (Scott Laboratories) system to determine the performance of the transport medium under field conditions. Clinical specimens maintained up to 5 days at ambient temperatures in ChlamydiaPort medium appeared suitable for diagnostic testing without detectable loss of positive specimens. In addition, there was a significant decrease in the average time required for diagnosis when compared with a standard transport system, Virocult (Microdiagnostics, Cleveland, Ohio). These results show that HSV infections can be successfully diagnosed in distant virology laboratories by shipping specimens in ChlamydiaPort transport medium at ambient temperatures.

SUMMARY An avidin-biotin complex system was compared with three commercially available immunofluorescence kits for serotyping herpes simplex virus isolates from clinical specimens. Sensitivity values showed that the Electro-Nucleonics and Immulok reagents were useful in detecting the presence of virus, whereas the predictive values showed that the Syva and Immulok reagents possessed adequate discrimination between the herpes simplex virus serotypes. The avidin-biotin complex system was equal or superior to the immunofluorescence reagents tested both in detecting herpes simplex virus antigens in cell culture and in serotyping herpes simplex virus isolates.

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