Bayer launches new blood glucose monitoring system

Chennai, Sep 18 (UNI) Bayer Diabetes Care, a division of Bayer HealthCare LLC and a member of the Bayer Group, announced the launch of the new 'CONTOUR TS' blood glucose monitoring system.

Bayer's 'CONTOUR TS' offers people with diabetes an accurate meter option with innovative 'No Coding' technology, which provides reliable blood glucose test results and eliminates miscoding errors that could put people with diabetes at clinical risk, Rakesh Julka, Country Division Head, Bayer Diabetes Care said in a release here today Unlike most meters that need to be manually coded to ensure accurate results 'CONTOUR TS' blood glucose meter automatically sets to the correct code any time. A Bayer test strip is inserted-- so there were fewer steps-- and no chance of an error due to miscoding, he added.

''This innovative technology eliminates errors due to miscoding, which is critical for every person with diabetes, especially those who need to take insulin,'' he said.

According to the specification of the new system, manual coding was a blood glucose testing procedural step that sometimes overlooked or performed incorrectly, which might lead to miscoding.

In a recent study it was found that approximately 16 per cent or one out of six persons failed to properly manually code their blood glucose meters to the lot of test strips being used.

Priced at Rs 2,500, Bayer's new 'CONTOUR TS' meters, people with diabetes can now obtain accurate blood glucose test results in just eight seconds. Also, the new system offers a small (0.6 uL) blood sample size and multiple-site (fingertip, palm or forearm) testing options.

''With diabetic population in Chennai reaching about half a million mark, it is a big challenge for the Diabetes Health Care Providers. We treat diabetes basically to improve the quality of life of a diabetic person and to prevent complications of diabetes that adversely affect the eyes, kidneys, nerves, feet and heart, he said.'' The corner stone in achieving this goal is monitoring for control of blood sugar. Home blood glucose monitoring using glucometer is a very handy and important method. But the patients need a simple, error free, accurate, user friendly glucometer, with a good service back up.

With the advent of new technology this was now possible, said Dr Vijay Kumar, Consultant-Diabetes Medicare Centre and Apollo Speciality Hospital, Chennai.

UNI