Starting Wednesday, October 18th, 2023, nationwide unavailability of reagents used for in-house testing will require temporary mail out of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) antibody panels.

The following are impacts of this issue:

• EBV full antibody panels will be immediately converted to mailout testing to ARUP Laboratories with the following new test code:

  EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS, FULL AB PANEL (MAILOUT) [LAB9384]
  Estimated turnaround time: 2-4 days
  Specimen container: BD Gold SST Vacutainer

• EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS ACUTE PANEL [LAB7810] will remain available for now but it is anticipated remaining reagent will be used up within 3 weeks. Specimen container is switching to Specimen container: BD Gold SST Vacutainer.

  We plan to make alternative assay (Monospot) available for acute EBV testing when that the acute panel reagents are no longer available.

• EBV HETEROPHILE AB [LAB7831] is being discontinued. The preferred test for suspected acute infection is EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS ACUTE PANEL [LAB7810].

Our vendor has not yet supplied a target date for return of testing supplies. Additional details will follow in a later broadcast.

Questions should be directed to Anna Merrill, PhD (678-8400, anna-merrill@uiowa.edu) or Matthew Krasowski, MD, PhD (384-9380, matthew-krasowski@uiowa.edu).