The Ministry of Defence has purchased three BacT/ALERT 3D 60 automated blood culture systems to help deal with combat casualties at the Camp Bastion Field Hospital in Afghanistan.
This sophisticated field hospital, one of the busiest Role 3 NATO hospitals in Afghanistan, provides life-saving treatment for wounded military personnel in Helmand Province, as well as Afghan national security forces and civilians.
Dave Scorer, Urgent Operational Requirement project manager in the MOD Medical and General Supplies project team, explained: "Most contemporary combat injuries in Afghanistan are sustained during dismounted patrols which pose a major risk of heavy contamination of wounds and an increased risk of septicaemia. By automating blood culture analysis, we aimed to release biomedical scientists from time-consuming manual techniques, allowing them to give greater attention to the support of trauma situations through, for example, blood transfusion.
"The BacT/ALERT 3D 60 from bioMérieux is compact and robust - an important consideration in a hot and dusty environment - and is intuitive and straightforward to use. Two systems are operational in Camp Bastion, with the third remaining in the UK in the Pathology School in Keogh Barracks, Aldershot, for all operators to be trained before deployment."
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